I think my new theme word is fatigue – although I hope that I can put it away soon. This last two weeks of travel have demonstrated that I just don’t have the same stamina that I used to have. I spent a few days visiting my parents – which was nice, but I did find that I was sleeping a little more than usual. Perhaps I can put that down to jet lag.

Then I went to Ottawa and attended a conference. The conference was longer than most academic conferences. Sprinkled in with the conference I had meetings with many friends and colleagues. I stuck around for almost a week after the conference to attend a family reunion (my husband’s family) and get in a few more meals/meetings with friends and committee members.

Overall, the trip was very successful. It has been over a year since I had last been to Ottawa – so it was good to visit but also to get caught up. Oh ya, and while I was there I also renewed my passport.

I was away for 14 days. By day 10 I was starting to fade. I struggled to keep going. I really felt the spoon theory was in practice. I’m not sure if it was the heat (Ottawa had a bit of heat wave that week) or getting glutened (ugg – not sure when that happened but eating out a lot meant that I had many different opportunities to accidentally get exposed). Or that I need to get myself some glasses for seeing my laptop cause I don’t have the benefit of my close monitor and hunching over is not nice on my aching back.

This trip highlighted to me that I just cannot plan to do as much as I used to. I need to slow down a little, and take it easy. I need to plan in more self-care on my trips. I need to plan to cook more meals for myself, ensuring that I am eating healthy but also avoiding gluten. The longer I’m away from home, the more likely I am to get accidentally exposed – and when that happens my body needs a lot of extra energy to deal with the ramifications of the exposure. It is like removing 1/2 the spoons from my store.

What this really says is that I should not plan trips that last more than 10 days (unless I’m in an RV cooking for myself – I have a little longer reach then!). So, with that my plans for the fall are being put in place. I’m booking my next trip to Ottawa for another conference (this one is shorter!) and another trip to visit my parents – but I’m removing the idea of tagging on another conference to the same trip. I will miss the opportunity to see many of Virtually Connecting friends, but I also need to realize that I can only do so much … I am still restocking my spoons.

Feature image: CC0 licence