Today marks my One Month Anniversary from when I left Dorchester.  The pup and I crawled into our RAV4 and left unceremoniously on March 28th; and since that day we only drove east for no more than a few miles at a time.  With the layover in Kansas, the time here in Orange County (mostly) is ticking towards the end of the 4th week.  Already I am 10 days past the longest time I have been away from home for a work reason in my career.

Currently, there isn’t an end in sight.

What brought me here was a work assignment, to fill a position that was vacated by an outgoing Quality Manager until such time we  transition a new manager in.  To transition someone in we need to hire them, and to hire them we need to find them, and as yet … that someone hasn’t been found.  Therefore, my indefinite stay is still indefinite.  I knew this assignment was going to be for months, my bet was until the end of June.  My concern (as I voiced so professionally to our HR team) is ‘if it stops being months and starts becoming monthssssssssss’.

In some ways, I am aching to get back to Dorchester.  Life on the road isn’t always easy.  I haven’t been feeling the best the last couple of weeks, and the idea that I am still going to be here for weeks/months to come isn’t helping with that.

Yet the far more depressing question comes up when I start contemplating the end of this assignment:

When I say to myself: “I want to get home.”

I answer with the question:  “To what?”

Seriously — I haven’t lived in Dorchester long enough to really have anything to go back to.  I really haven’t met any friends there, so I am not exactly missed (maybe by a bartender or two).  I have a condo I am only half moved into.  I don’t have any groups or activities I am a part of.  My puppadog is with me.  The things I really miss are things that the hotel lacks – like the NHL network, or a place to get a beer I don’t have to get a taxi to reach.  And heck … I am not locked down to the hotel I am at, I can move in a heartbeat.  At least at my hotel, there is always a place to park.

So, really, if I got told ‘today’ the assignment was done – the only reason why I have to go back is because … well .. that’s the place where I own a condo.

For now though, we chug on.  Wake up, go to work, come back, let the pup do his business, go to bed.  Making do with this assignment in the Los Angeles sun, far away where snow still files and the parking doesn’t exist.   In it’s own way, it is working & living for today, letting tomorrow come when it does.