The Return from Vacation Land

The one about the post-vacay blues.

If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I can make absolutely anything a reason to get nostalgic and reflective. I need no excuse to assess and overanalyze the hell out of everything; it’s basically in my DNA. That said, I do have a certain triggers — the moments that really spark a heavy dose of reflection in my brain and an urge to reclaim something lost deep within my soul:

My birthday;

New Year’s;

A really good commencement speech (or just speech in general);

Air travel;

And — last, but certainly not least — vacations.

The double whammy? A vacation involving a plane trip.

This past week, I was in Maui with my husband, sweating my butt off and eating a lot of pineapple soft serve (Dole whip!) and reapplying sunscreen like it was my job. We went for a few days to take a proper vacation, and, you know, try to actually disconnect. For two people who are constantly tethered, digitally speaking, to something, it was a much needed break. Just… offline time. (Mostly, anyways.) Admittedly it was not quite as refreshing as I’d hoped — I’m still trying to get to the bottom of that — but it was fun and a nice change of pace and just overall delightful to not have to stare into a computer’s blue light for 10 hours a day.

Anyways, long story short, I found myself crying at the Maui airport, not once, friends, but twice. [I’m VERY fun.] First, it was because I observed a family drop-off that got me thinking about my mom and what my future family might look like, and the very real possibility that my eventual children (should I have any) will never know my parents. (Well, definitely not my mom at least, obviously.) We’ll never have family vacations to my parents’ house to have pancakes and go for walks together around the neighborhoods I grew up or enjoy big holiday dinners at their dining room table. That just… isn’t in the cards for me and these children I don’t have. And that… well it’s a hard pill to swallow, even if it is the truth.

And then, about an hour later, waiting to go wheels up from my window seat on the plane, I found myself listening to music and starting to cry again… why, I’m not even sure, other than I started to feel really contemplative about my life and my future, more broadly speaking. I was probably still on edge from the first crying bout, and overall triggered by the bittersweetness that is the impending end of a vacation plus just preparing to sit somewhere for five hours with nothing to do but think. (It should go without saying that I’m really terrible at sleeping on planes.)

So much of life lately feels like being on a hamster wheel. Spinning and spinning and never really getting anywhere, but the time continues to tick by, at an almost anxiety-inducing rate. It didn’t quite feel that way while I was on this trip, though, and the people I encountered each day on Maui (the locals specifically) certainly didn’t seem to be experiencing that. I’m cognizant of vacation-induced rose colored glasses, making everything seem lovelier or more interesting when you’re a traveler, but for me, vacation somewhere outside of my norm also usually forces me to turn inward and get inspired. This trip pushed me to think about how I’ve arranged my life, and my days. Maybe it was due to living on island time, sure, or maybe it was due to dropping into a culture that seemed to be more focused on living intentionally than I’m used to anymore. I looked around at the people enjoying their day to day on Maui and the simple pleasures that innately emerge from a life built on a foundation of doing things that fill your cup in a community you really cherish, and I realized I could probably be making more of an effort to do the same in my own life. To recenter, and think about what I need — like really need — out of my life, rather than doing the same run on that wheel each day.

On a whole, vacations always seem to serve as an opportunity for me to brush off the cobwebs and get clearer on what direction I’m heading in, metaphorically speaking (usually colored with a little melancholia at the end of the trip). Maybe it’s the chance to see another way of life — a change in perspective, and a glance at the what-could-be’s of it all — that automatically sends my brain into overdrive, intent on double checking that I’m still awake at the wheel. I inevitably head home with a to-do list of ways to improve or tweak or somehow reshape my life so that it feels like the path is really matching my desired destination. While I don’t usually cry in airports, this vacation was otherwise no different, and I’m still sifting through my mental notes to figure out what it all means in terms of where I’m heading or why.

It makes me think of this quote from “You’ve Got Mail:”

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life, well, valuable, but small, and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

Anyways, similar to what Kathleen Kelly said… I don’t really want an answer. Just sending it out to the void (aka all of you).

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On that note, I hope you all have a fab Friday! I’ll be shaking off the jet lag (a red eye from Hawaii is killer, as it turns out) and drinking my weight in coffee. xo

Thanks for reading,

Joelle