When I’m at a convention away from home there are spaces where I can sit in my hotel room and begin to process all the thoughts from the previous hours. When I leave LTUE, I only have a space for as long as I drive home. The minute I enter my house I pick up all of my at-home responsibilities. In some ways this is restful. Being surrounded by my usual things is very grounding. I remember why my life is structured as it is. In other ways it is exhausting because some of my at home tasks draw from the same energy wells that are tapped out by the convention. Thus far LTUE has been marked by a lack of angry/upset phone calls from children. However the longest day is yet to go. Hopefully tomorrow will be good for the children as well.
Thursday drained me almost completely, being home restored me. Today was much more balanced. I realized that I began this particular convention already frazzled since illness compressed my usual three-day prep period into a single day when I was only working at about half capacity. Yet the things I feared would go wrong did not. All is well.
I enjoyed my panels. I took notes. I will write them up when I can string thoughts together in an eloquent fashion. Right now I need to reserve my coherent thoughts so I can prepare for the panel and workshop tomorrow. I hope that I can do a good job in providing useful information for the attendees.
Now I need to restock Howard’s car with merchandise for the table and then go to bed.