We spent the month of April with my brother, sister in law, and nephew in Atlanta, GA. We were already pretty close, but we don’t get to see each other often, so Mike and I were really excited to see them. Of course, it was an extra treat to get to hang out with my baby nephew. It’s really hard to bond with a kid when you only see them a couple of days a year, so that felt really special.

Our goals, on top of our normal goals (work, bond, spend as much time with people as possible), included helping with baby-care and helping around the house, bonding with baby as much as possible, and trying to let his mom sleep sometimes. The problem is, we still have to work.

So imagine, day one of the visit, sitting at the desk downstairs working, and hearing the clop, clop, clop of a toy rolling down the stairs towards you. Then another. Then another. And then the delightful giggle of a little boy who is apparently trying to entice you up the stairs by rolling toys down to the Galia-and-Mike maker. (Insert toy: out comes a Galia or a Mike! Like magic.)

Likewise, this was sometimes the view out of the window by my desk:

Needless to say, it is very difficult to keep working. So the choice is either: keep working and feel like you should be hanging out, or hang out and feel like you should be working. Every moment, every day, you have to choose. Work, people, sightsee, life stuff, bond. Work, people, sightsee, life stuff, bond. No matter what you choose, you feel like you’re never doing any of them enough. Work: my employees need me, my clients are waiting for things, I need to spend time building my business. People: the whole point of the trip is to spend time with our friends and family, this should be a priority. Sightsee: we’ve never been here before, I don’t want to go through it and not actually see anything. Life stuff: still gotta go grocery shopping, pay the bills, sleep, eat, and shower; not to mention just be alone sometime to stay sane (but how can I justify being alone when we’re supposed to be spending time with people?!). Bond: our relationship is the most important thing, and even great relationships require time and intention.

Every day is filled with balancing those priorities. If I spend time hanging out, I won’t have time to do that work project, so I won’t be able to get to sleep at a normal hour. If I work, I won’t be able to go to the farmer’s market and spend time together. If I stay inside reading, I might regret not maximizing time with people, and how can I justify that when the point of the trip is to spend time? If we maximize time in X location, then we’ll only have a day to get to Y location, and we won’t be able to sightsee; but the point is to spend time with people, so shouldn’t we include that extra day? But we can’t leave on a Monday, because I’d have to take a day off of work for traveling; but if we leave Sunday, that’s a full weekend day of hanging out we’re missing.

I see now, more than ever, that life is truly made up of what you decide is worth your time. You cannot do everything, and you cannot ever give anything as much time as you want to. The best we can do is decide what’s important, and try to maximize time doing that thing (while balancing the others the best you can). A lot of the rest of it comes down to communicating and also just forgiving yourself when you feel like you’re not quite hitting the mark.

Atlanta was a blast. We had so much fun, and felt so comfortable there. We fell into a great routine by the end, where we mostly worked during the day, with bursts of hanging out and playing. At night we’d figure out family dinner, and my sister in law would come back out after putting the baby to bed, and we’d stay up talking until late. And weekends, we’d go adventuring. But, as always, the month flew by way too quickly. With people working, the hangout time gets distilled to nights and weekends, and your actual adventure days are surprisingly few when you look at it that way. So even our month was way too short, and we had to drive off too soon, with tears in our eyes, always wishing we could have spent more time.

Pretty good office