It’s day 12 of our Hawaiian vacation. I feel crazy lucky to be able to have come here, especially for two full weeks. It’s been great, for the most part but… I have decided that I am, officially, a vacation retard. And actually, I feel like a spoiled brat vacation retard at that.
Pretty much everyone I know would cut off their left arm (or nut, as the case may be) to spend 2 weeks on the Big Island with nothing much to do each day but to decide… hmmm – should my first swim of the day be in the ocean or in the pool? WTF – I say to myself. Why can I not just let it all go – relax and be fucking happy? It’s cuz I am neurotic, that’s why.
I have decided this. Vacations are for people who work their asses off, feel fulfilled and accomplished and who deserve to sit on their worked-off-asses and relax – with a Mai Tai, or seven. Now while I know that I do a lot and I know that raising kids is no flippin’ cake walk… I can’t exactly feel that I have deserved this vacation – or any vacation for that matter. I’m forever tortured with the angst that I want to/need to accomplish something (other than bringing two amazing people into the world) in this lifetime and have yet to do it. And lord knows – I ain’t getting any younger. 48 next month? Fuck.
I’ve decided that there are vacations and there are trips. Vacations are for the body. Trips are for the mind. I guess they are both for the soul. I am a trip girl – I thrive on intellectual and cultural stimulation. THRIVE on it! Crazy as I’m sure it seems – I would be happier plopped down in the middle of New York City for 2 weeks, than plopped down on a Hawaiian beach for 2 weeks.
I know, I’m a FREAK! (I can just hear Jenna now… “I hate you – you freak!”) But this has been a problem or rather a neurosis of mine for as long as I can remember.
When I was 19 my mom rented a house in the South of France for the summer and bought tickets for all of us (she, my brothers and me) to sail over on the (swanky) QE2 from New York. I said “thank you, but I am going to stay home (LA), work at Haagen Daz (for minimum wage [@ $3.35 in 1981]) and hang out at the beach with my friends.” It was a blast of a summer. I have no regrets.
When, at age 26, I went on an “open-ended” solo trip to Australia – after a month or so, I was tortured. TORTURED I SAY. There I was – this young, college-educated, able-bodied person – lollygagging around Australia doing… what exactly? Yeah it was an adventure, and I learned to dive and drank some beer and ok the affair with the dive instructor was damn fun but… I was anxious. I needed to get home and get to work. Needed to get busy in my career. And so I did -ish.
Here I am 20+ years later and I am just as freakin’ anxious. No, I’m more anxious. Now I’m an old, college-educated, able-bodied person – lollygagging around Hawaii doing… what exactly?
It’s just been like that for me for ever. I wish more than anything I could just take a Stepford Wife pill, or turn my brain off or get my hands on some good sedatives but… so far it’s just me and my unfulfilled ambition trapped in my head wherever I go. Even when it’s to “paradise” for two weeks.
Don’t hate me cuz I’m tortured.
Aloha.
