For The Love Of Vacation

"The trouble is not that we are never happy-it is that happiness is so episodical. All I really care about...can almost frighten me with happiness. But then it's gone and I cannot see what holds it all together."
-Ruth Benedict

I need to get out of here, and by here I mean the daily grind which for me takes place in NYC. One upon a time a few years ago I saved up, quit my job and jetted off to Europe for a couple months with the intent to revive my spirits. It worked...for a while anyway. The daily grind has a way of robbing life's color after awhile if you let it. Apparently I have. (A work update is needed and will be provided...eventually.) Though I don't feel the same way I did when I upped and quit a few years ago, I am at the point where if I don't get a little time off to explore new things and meet new people I might go mad.

Realistically that just means a boring kind of depression, one that doesn't require medication or therapy because it really doesn't register on the needing actual help scale. It's just a general melancholy that surrounds me...kind of like pigpen's dirt. Basically, I let the happy episodes occur further and further apart with nothing to connect them. I need a reminder (a memory can only get me so far) of how absolutely amazing life can be when you're not chained to 40 hour work week. Or should I say 50.

In Holland their starting vacation time is 4 weeks. I really do believe I would be a happier person if I had more time off. This 2 week corporate bullshit is harming its workforce, not increasing production. And with the turn-over of jobs so high, who sticks around one company long enough to get to that 4 week allowance?

There is so much to do and see and so little time to do and see it.

I do have a small vacation to a tropical island coming up, which is much needed. The thought of sitting half naked on a beach with daiquiri in hand makes me want to melt with relief. I haven't had a real vacation in two years. That's not to say I haven't had time off, it's just that I didn't go anywhere relaxing or new and interesting to explore. Mom and Dad's house doesn't count as vacation.


Though I think Ms. Benedict was speaking more in terms of love being the great connector, here is my offering of how to potentially connect episodes...vacation. (sigh)