chart your own course

Do you ever feel anxious returning from vacation? Somewhere between where you’ve been and home the to-do lists start sneaking in… the unpacking, the laundry, the grocery shopping… the phone calls, the emails, the work projects… the mind’s reeling may be punctuated with tightness in the chest or subtle knotting in the stomach…

Have you ever heard, or said, “It’s hardly even worth being gone” or “I always pay for being gone when I get back”? My girlfriend jokingly refers to the transition as “end of trip depression.”

I think the fact that so many of us can relate to these feelings says less about the decision to take time off and so much more about how easy it is for “normal” life to become imbalanced—over scheduled, over committed, over worked and just generally without adequate time for relaxing and playing.

Maybe we could take these stress signals on the ventures back home as cues that we need to restructure the other 48-50 weeks out of the year. Perhaps rather than working extra hard on either side of “time off”, “time on” could have enough self-love and self-care time built in to allow for flexibility to deviate from the daily course of activities.

Maybe we would call this simply: Living. You know, as opposed to living for the alleged weekend or holding our breath until the next holiday or vacation.

Dearest You,

What if life felt so good you just didn’t ever need a vacation from it?

(It could.)

Love,