Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Vacation? What is this vay-cay-shun you speak of?

Mental Rehab Post # 12
Been thinking and thinking, and realizing some truths and other things I've either been faking myself out on didn't want to recognize, which may be the same thing. It's one of them situations where I've suddenly got a major change coming up, and another that just past, so my thoughts are kinda tangled and falling out of their assigned positions. Seeing what happens.


I've never taken a vacation as an adult.

When I say that, I have a very specific set of meanings. Well, first I haven't been on an actual vacation of any kind in more than seven years. Not anywhere just for the sake of going. No place. The two jobs I've had in that timespan either didn't pay enough and/or demanded way too much of my time. (A rough estimate is 72 vacay days lost since I've been at this last firm.) And in the time prior to that, when I say as an "adult" you are unknowingly acutely aware of what I mean in regards to a vacation. You and/or a companion will a) travel and then b) get a hotel room and c) enjoy the event (concert, festival, beach, etc, whatever).

For the past seven or so years the A in that little scenario has been missing. Before that the B wasn't an option. It is a wholly pathetic state of affairs. And I used to read magazines Conde Nast Traveler, Travel and Leisure and Caribbean Travel and Life along with the resort brochures religiously. I studied cruise ship design and sketched out driving routes and figured out train schedules across half of Europe. On my "Bucket List" there is so much travel it's ridiculous. But a trip outside the perimeter is a hassle at this point.

In the years before now, even on those rare occasions I did travel, it was still "college style." You know, where my accommodations were a floor, couch, or mattress at somebody's house. Or worse, an adult lite version where eight or nine people shared accommodations normally shared by two or four. It was a fun concept until you realized that if you weren't the first in the bed you were on the floor. So it was the illusion of adult travel, but was in reality ultra nice college tripping.

And now with law school looming and the post education schedule new lawyers must embrace, a real vacation may be at best another six or ten years away. That sounds wonderful doesn't it? And as I now have no one to travel with there is little to no reason to break that chain so I don't see a vacation happening anytime soon.

How did you survive all that time you ask?

I used to have some spectacular weekends. That and I don't think even I understood how much I got out of my weekly breaks with Sporty till they were gone.

And the band played on...

Barkeep...a little hot chocolate, with the marshmellows...yeah..

4 comments:

Bay Martin said...

Hi Rhumperd,

Haven't said, thank you for visiting my blog. It's a pity you couldn't find the time to rewind. Don't you get bored? Once in a while you have to go out of your shell and see what's happening around you.

Remember the famous exhortation: work and no play at all makes Rhumperd a dull boy ha ha ha!!!

Have a great time blogging!

Anonymous said...

Awww poor you...pick yourself up from you boot straps and plan a da-hoho-mn vacation! One of the great things about school is that there are regular breaks...YAY Coordinate one of those with work vaca days and be out...Go to Mexico, Canada, Jamaica. Screw the illusion of taking a companian and have fun on your own. ENJOY the MOMENT!! This is me venting back

M. said...

Although I'm going to school, I still have a job (although the plan is to change that soon), so for a while I'm doing double duty.

And since I don't like being alone in Atlanta, I'm not sure why I would want to be alone someplace else.

...and I'm slow...da-hoho-mn? Huh?

Lina said...

I try to go somewhere every year, and yet it seems that lately if I want to visit a place, no one wants to go with me. My remedy to that was going alone, but a solitary vacation isn't as fun as people like to make it. You get to do whatever you want to do, but if you have a great experience, there is no one to share it with. So I can definitely understand why you would not want to go it alone.