Vacation Recuperation

My husband hasn’t earned much vacation time yet, but he was allowed to take a Friday and Monday off so we could have an extended weekend away with the kids.

As usual, our vacation consisted of travelling south to see family and friends.  With careful planning, we managed to squeeze in lots of fun and worthwhile things.

We visited my parents (first time since my dad’s heart attack), spent time with my husband’s grandma (she’ll be 91 soon), and stayed and played with two of my sisters and their families. 

We spent a day at Calaway Park, had a picnic at a spray park, visited my Naturopath, played games,

enjoyed a barbecue with friends, walked around a picturesque lake, and attended an uplifting church service where my sister and niece spoke about the lessons they learned during their recent hair-raising canoe trip down the treacherous Milk River.

 

Amidst the fun, there were some unexpected surprises:  a drenching downpour at Calaway Park, a debilitating, day-long migraine for my daughter, and waking up in Calgary the second morning of our trip to find the left back window of our van smashed out. 

 

Now we’re home, it’s time to deal with four days’ worth of laundry, a dirty and broken van, and some coughs and colds.

My grandma used to say (about her grandkids):  “I love to see them come, but I love to see them go!”  I feel the same about vacations.  I love to get away, but I love to come home!

Let the recuperating begin.
 

Anticipation

This time last year I wrote an article called “The Top of the Hill”.  It was about me turning thirty-nine and dreading turning forty.

Well, this week I’ll reach that milestone, and you know what?  I’m fine with it.  No big deal.  I’m forty!!  I’ve earned my gray hairs, spider veins, and skin tags!

Before I turned thirty, I also panicked.  And I’ll probably freak out about turning fifty.  But I’m starting to see a pattern:  Sometimes the anticipation is worse than the actual event.

It works the other way too.  Sometimes the anticipation is better than the event – like the vacation you planned for a year then vomited the entire time.

When I was a teenager, the thought of moving away from home was frightening.  I couldn’t fathom ever being ready to live away from my family.  But I did it.  I lived on my own for six years before I got married.

My daughter worries about moving away from home.  I tell her not to worry – that when it’s time, she’ll be ready.  Funny how that works.  Anticipation can help us to prepare for and accept what’s coming.  A wise man once said, “If you are prepared, you shall not fear”.

Then there’s cleaning toilets, ironing, and dusting – three chores I detest.  When I anticipate them, I am miserable.  When I jump in, get it done, reward myself, and bask in the triumph of a job completed, I am happy.  Why do I waste time and energy dreading things?

I hope that as the years go on, I will wisely remember to savour each moment and each challenge, looking forward – with the joyous, motivating kind of anticipation, not the worrisome, anxious kind – to what the next day will bring.

There's No Place Like Home

We added a few days to the long weekend and headed south for a vacation.  We attended a Valedictorian niece’s graduation, visited my husband’s grandma in a nursing home, celebrated our son’s first birthday, played games with my sisters, and watched fourteen cousins of varying ages interact.  It was wonderful!

But when we passed Edmonton on our way home, I got very excited.  The anticipation of getting home was greater than the anticipation of going away.  I couldn’t wait for my own bed, my own bath, my own kitchen, my own closet, my own computer…

Vacations are fun, but there’s no place like home.

The place we call home can change many times during our lives.  When I left home at the age of 19 and moved to Calgary, I still considered my parents’ home in BC to be my true home.  “I’m going home for Christmas” I would say.  I’m not sure when I stopped thinking of my parents’ home as my home; I think somewhere around the time I got married and started my own family.

I sometimes miss the acreage where I grew up, but that’s what memories and photographs are for. 

As I’ve moved from city to city, I’ve learned that home isn’t so much the location or the structure, but what’s inside.  We fill our homes with the people and things that we love, that make us comfortable, that make us happy.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an apartment, a mobile, a mansion, or a tent.

I’m thankful my parents (who are both 70 this year) realize this.  They took their most precious possessions and favourite furniture and moved into a seniors’ lodge.  They’re downsizing, reducing their luggage, understanding the vacation will end someday and they might as well be prepared for that inevitable, joyous move Home.