We were sitting at a bar. Nearly empty - after all it was still during normal office hours. Top floor. From my bar stool I could see the solar panels right outside the patio. "That's our neighboring business's, - said the bartender. And added how they had to strictly ban smoking on the patio so the cigarette buds do not fall on the panels and do not accidentally damage them".
A wall of liquor bottles, top to bottom. And beer taps, mainly microbrewery left to right. Once upon a time I worked in a place with bottles on the shelf, left wall to right. Now I am here after work, and after a period of a hard work, and after all the work I've done I'm trying to put my thoughts together and think clearly and I feel like I'm in a fish tank, and everything around is surreal.
Gusty wind was throwing around newspapers, plastic bags, debris - looking especially cute with the French-style light jazz playing in the bar. Here the wind is dancing with the traffic light trying to knock down the pole, and here - no, it can't! And now a tree branch is lifted up in the air, and now - it just missed somebody's car! Hell, I barely had been blown off my feet while walking a block away from my car!
- ... So we decided you all could take the rest of the week off! - I've heard our Audit Partner's voice. I mean I had been hearing her well all that time, but at that moment I thought I did not.
I asked her twice to make sure it was not a joke and neither a mistake.
I asked if everyone in both offices will take 3 days off.
I asked if no one will for sure show up and that there would be no objections from the firm partners.
I finally realized that there's no mistake and no small print, and 2 other partners just confirmed it, and.... by the end of the week I will have my life and myself in better shape. For sure.
And then there was a little bit more oxygen in my fish tank.
And between the blood orange IPA and driving to daycare, I realized that this must be the most basic, practical example of happiness for me - complete freedom, with no strings attached.
