The Art of Vacation!

Sarah and I returned from an 11 day vacation just last Monday (06/01) during which we traveled road-trip style to visit a second cousin outside of D.C. and then headed north to visit Sarah's great aunt and uncle in Carlisle, PA.

The trip was a true gift--our first longer break since Sarah started her Physical Therapy degree and I started at Horizons.  While it always takes some decompressing before the actual rest and fun begins, Sarah and I set up 2 rules for how we were to spend our time:

1. Don't do anything you don't want to do.
2. Don't allow yourself to feel guilty about not doing it. 

They are simple rules, but they were definitely impactful yet much easier to say than to live into.  Nevertheless, we did fairly well, finding a delicate balance of just kicking back and doing many of the things we didn't need to travel 1,300 miles each way to do (sleep, exercise, play games, read) and taking advantage of the attractions that could only be enjoyed by driving the distance (museums, battlefields, jazz concerts, etc.).

Time Magazine published a cover article (May 22nd, 2015) titled "Who Killed Summer Vacation?"  I know this because it was inadvertently laying on the table of my second cousin's table.  Among trends such as less paid time off being offered, one consistent influence on the amount of time taken off comes from the stress produced by being away.  Even if less vacation time is being offered to Americans, the other side of the coin is that fewer Americans are taking all the time off they are allotted each year.  

As I sat in the back of our canou, slowly coasting across a serene lake in the Michaux State Forest on our last day before making the two-day return trip home, I took a lazy measurement of my own anxiety.  Although it was still pretty low, I could feel the mild terror of returning ebbing.  How many e-mails will I have?  What emergencies will need to be addressed?  Will the lawn need to be mowed?  Will I actually have enough time to prepare the lesson I agreed to teach Thursday?  Will I still remember how to preach?  

It makes sense to me as Americans we're not taking all our vacation.  I can't say exactly why this trend has grown other than my guess that technology plays a crucial role (i.e.  e-mails are easy to send.  Twenty years ago there's now way I would've received 250 pieces of physical mail,).  At any rate, it seems that the stress, anxiety, and catch-up panic caused by being away often outweigh the joy of taking time off and being away.  

Thus, learning the art of vacationing is crucial.  In addition to completely disconnecting from the world and following the two simple rules from above, there are rules to the return process as well:

1. Express with your travel companions and dismiss and dismiss together the return anxieties as they come and insist on not getting crabby toward the end.
2. Don't let the vacation be over until it's over.
3. Set a pace once home.  Not EVERYTHING will get done or be put back to normal immediately.  Help yourself and others agree to and accept this. 
4. Schedule some mini-vacation moments later in the week rather than trying to prolong the inevitable and delaying the return to the office.  
5. Trust that even in regard to vacation time, God is faithful and will walk with you through your return and the mountain of tasks ahead (this has no specific pertinence to me being a pastor.  God has a real place in all work spaces) 

And so it's now the Monday after my initial week of being back.  I still have much to catch up on and and our annual United Methodist Conference is this week, leaving very little time once again.  In all reality, given the pace of my weeks following, I shouldn't have taken so much time off, or I should have taken it some other time.  Yet, if I lived into that mentality, I'd simply be contributing to the statistics in the Time article--no time's a good time for a vacation.

So here's to vacations, learning to take a step back from the race, and learning to step back into it with grace.

More to come!

Jason <><