How to Take a Vacation

View from our hotel room window. Yeah . . . I know.

After my last post, I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with a trio of problems -- bronchitis, an ear infection and pinkeye -- and prescribed a trio of medications to fix them.  Then I got on the plane to get away from said problems.  It didn't exactly work; the ear infection followed me there, made worse by flying and swimming, and has now somehow transferred itself to my other ear.  I can hear about 50% out of one ear and almost nothing from the other, which has made me a LOT more sympathetic to the older people in my life who are constantly asking me to repeat myself.

But . . . vacation.  Really letting go.  No deadlines, no decisions; nothing to think about but relaxing.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how few people at our resort wore any kind of listening device; I was usually the only one with an iPod (I burned through my stack of books by Day 3 and had to switch to audiobooks.)  The music of the waves was enough.  It was perfect.

My college professor husband has been christened Free-Time Rob by our friends; on a five-week break from school and between semesters, he has few responsibilities.  Left to his own devices, he'd throw a party every night (marrying a sanguine was the best thing I've ever done for my social life!)  And on vacation, he really lets go.  But me, I'm not so good at relaxing.  I did manage to leave my computer at home, and I brought only "fun" books -- nothing for school.  About Day 5, however, I started to worry about my classes.  Had I left adequate instructions?  Would the substitute remember to show up?  Would my piano students remember not to show up, or would they frighten our house-sitting friend?  I thought about what I would say and do on my first day back, how I would lay out the second half of the school year.  I was working in spite of myself.  Sometimes my task-orientedness (if I can presume to coin that adjective) sickens me.

And now that I've been home for almost a week?  I gaze at that photo and wish I were back.  I swear, I wouldn't think about school once.

Comments

[Terry McNichols]

And where is this? Too far for us PNW-ers to get to.