Jacob Heric

What would you do if you were given three months off to do whatever it was you wanted to do? What if you were allowed to hit the pause button on your career, take a break from work during your prime earning years, and just do whatever it was you wanted to do?

Well, I can’t really answer that truthfully as I didn’t write up a list of priorities and then hit the pause button and start checking things off. But, I am wrapping up three months away from work and I thought it would be a good time to list what it was I did, why I did it and why I think it was important.

First, a little context. As I mentioned earlier (apologies in advance for the recapitulation, but it bears repeating), the primary impetus for hitting the pause button in the first place was that my daughter (my four year old) fractured both her tibias in a very halloween appropriate accident in the fantastic Evergreen Cemetery near our house. Long story short, she scurried away from her mother (who was occupied chasing down our one year old) and tried to climb a tombstone. It toppled on her legs and fractured both her tibias and she spent a night in the hospital and seven weeks in casts. Though it was mortifying (pun intended and only possible in light of her full recovery…read on) and horrifying for her and us, she was chipper throughout and handled the ordeal with grace and is now %100 recuperated and back in pre-school and running and jumping like never before.

So, I never really made a decision to pause my career. The decision was made for me by her accident. And because of that, I am grateful for the accident. This sounds weird I know. But I assure you, I wish the accident never happened and I would go back and undo it if I could. But I can’t. I have no choice but to consider it in conjunction with all of its effects and repercussions and process it and asses it thus.
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“People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately.”

Norman Bates said that in Psycho. He said it in the parlor scene as Marion nibbled on sandwiches, taxidermy looming, and politely suggested that Norman put his mother in the madhouse. We watched it the other night, streamed it on netflix (I always said I was never going to be one of those people who put a television in their bedroom, but here we are logging countless hours on the macbook in bed watching movies). It’s a great film. Lots of long, jarring shots: Marion’s face on the bathroom floor, Norman’s neck and chin above the guest register.
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