Enjoying a vacation at home

It’s a familiar question: “What are you going to do on your vacation?”

Do? Do? Why must I DO anything on my vacations? Okay, it’s fun to do things and we all need fun. But some of us need sleep, too. And for some of us, just being away from the day job is all we really need.

We’re the ones who love being home, love sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee in the morning quiet. We think taking an afternoon nap is a better treat than ice cream. (That’s stretching it a bit, but you get my point.)

I’m on vacation this week, and I confess just being home is what I’ve craved since my last vacation. I typically work the day job forty-five hours a week, and being home is a luxury.

Searching for something I haven’t blogged on this morning turned up an article from 2011 that seemed appropriate to today. It fit right in to my plan for the day: blog, walk, nap. I’ll share it again and then find my sneakers to take a walk through the woods.
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From April, 2011

Rewind, Relax, Renew

When I was growing up, a walk to the pond was a family affair, and most of us came home with wet shoes and paws. You have to cross three different creeks to get there - and cross them again to get home. Being young and nimble, I usually managed to make the leaps. Dad never landed in the water, but being six- foot-two he had the advantage of longer legs than the rest of us.

The pond is a magical place for me, a place of renewal. You might look at the picture and shrug, but you can’t smell the spicy tang of the woods, or hear the smallest twig snap as a deer comes in to drink. The picture doesn’t let you see the flash of silver as one of the little sunnies swims into a too shallow spot and has to flap his way back to deeper water.

Walks to the pond are almost solitary events these days. The dog goes with me, but the woods walkers in the family have been reduced to one – me. Mom can’t do the distance now, which is worrisome in that it reminds me she’s not so young anymore. My partner completed the walk once, by willpower alone, but while chemotherapy saved his life, it left him no longer strong enough to walk such a distance and we both know it. My grandparent’s are gone, and my cousins married girls that practice mall walking. It’s all part of a bigger wheel turning and it’s okay.

Take time for yourself in all your endeavors. Discover what it is that gives you space to breathe and learn to use is as the life tool it is. Don’t shortchange yourself by living with your nose unceasingly pressed to your personal grindstone. It will strip you away, layer-by-layer, and leave you wondering what the heck happened to the days of your life. Without downtime, it’s easy to forget why you love doing what you do.

Rewind, relax, renew. You really are worth it.
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KC Kendricks