Travel is NOT “Vacation”
Sometimes, when people hear that I've been out of town and see me when I get back, they'll ask how my "vacation" went. I have to chuckle at this, because when I travel or take trips, it's almost never vacation, and definitely never relaxing.
I'm not saying that taking a vacation is bad or that relaxation isn't a worthy goal when taking a trip, but 99% of the time, when I leave home, it's most decidedly unrelaxing.
About a year ago, I went to a friend's wedding in California, and took along my daughter to give her a special experience with dad. We spent about three days on the trip, and most of the time involved getting there and back. When we got back in town, a lady said "I heard you went to California! Did you have a relaxing vacation?"
I laughed out loud and said "It was not a vacation," then caught myself and realized I may have come across as unkind and felt bad. But it's really a strange thing: if people find out that I'm out of town or out of state, they assume I'm sitting on a beach for hours and hours in the sun, drinking boat drinks, unplugging for several days. But that's almost never the case (I can only think of one trip I've taken where that was the case, actually).
In the case of the wedding, for example, the event was in Fresno, but as long as we were going all the way to California, I was determined to take my daughter to the beach. In order to pull that off, we had to fly into Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) airport, rent a car, and drive three hours to our AirBNB in Morro Bay. That means we got into Fresno around 8:00pm, then spent 3 hours in the car, and finally got to the place we were staying at midnight.
The next morning, we got up around 9:00am, went to the beach at 10:00am, and then headed back to Fresno, spending 3 hours in the car, so we could get to the event in time.
Was it worth it? Yes, going to the beach on a trip with one of my kids who had never been there before was worth it. Was it relaxing? No way! It was exhausting, and involved a tricky schedule to pull it off.
My point is that traveling to new places, sharing new experiences, and taking journeys is one of my favorite things to do. But when I'm on a trip like that, relaxation is almost never in the cards. I'm taking a trip, or traveling. Not taking a vacation. They're still worth going, but I'm totally spent when I get home.
So if you see me after I get back home from a trip, don’t ask how my vacation went.
Please.
This is happening to me right now actually. We went to Florida, saw Mom and Dad for an evening, stayed up till 3 with my friend Kitty, had Dim Sum with Bryan’s Mom and her husband, who I set a boundary with that made him angry. I had breakfast with an old friend and then we drove two hours to the coast and set off for a cruise. The cruise was relaxing. We went snorkeling in Cozumel and walked Mayan ruins near Costa Maya. Got back from the cruise, went to a family reunion, had our early Christmas celebration and gift exchange, dedicated Riley’s headstone, had a game night, and went to the beach. I also pulled an all nighter with Rachie and Bekah. Then Bryan and I spent a day cleaning, sorting, and packing our things at Mom and Dad’s. Bryan put the door back on the truck dad is giving me and loaded his crotch rocket motorcycle into the bed. We purchased a car from Bryan’s mom and filled it with our things. We prepared the vehicles to be shipped to us in January. Then we had breakfast with Bryan’s first boss, lunch with his old friends, he had a game night while I made dinner for our friend who hosted us and filled her fridge up with groceries. We were dropped off at the airport by Bryan’s Mom and sat at our gate staring blankly into the void, exhausted and incapable of more. I didn’t sleep more than five hours on any night in Florida. We have officially packed up the rest of our lives from Florida and saw some friends for what I’m sure is the last time. This is a pretty typical kind of trip for me. Pack it all in. Not relaxing AT ALL. Some people we saw were offended that we didn’t have more time to spend with them outside of the one meal we slotted space in our schedule for. But every single moment of every day was packed. We could have added to it if we wanted to.