I recently went on vacation with my wife and a friend, and it was lovely. It was a very long weekend, full of diversion and conversation. It makes me kind of mad that I denied myself these things for so long in pursuit of a goal that was never really mine to begin with. There are several things I like about vacations, but oddly enough, getting away from work isn't really one of them. I like my work. Even so, vacations are great because they remove me from the embedded context of my life. You could restate that as 'pulling me out of my rut', but that has negative connotations I'm not really intending.
I probably exercise more on vacation simply by walking around than I ever do at home, so 'relaxing' isn't really the big draw. I tend to be a stress-free person, so stress relief isn't really it either. And while I did see some wonderful things and took a bunch of pictures, it couldn't honestly be called educational. We did nothing particularly extreme, and yet it was all memorable. Up until this last weekend I was honestly puzzled by what I felt I had gained by taking a long weekend, driving a total of over 15 hours, and spending lots of money during a recession. I didn't regret it, but some part of my brain that needs to analyze things just wasn't happy without a decent answer. And that answer was given when my sister-in-law stopped by for a brief visit with her three kids.
I don't have a lot of experience dealing with kids, and frankly I'm a little timid around them, afraid I'm going to knock them over or something. But as far as I can tell, these kids bounce pretty well, and by the time they left, I was feeling much more relaxed. But in all of that, the thing I noticed was that I couldn't withdraw into myself hardly at all. My wife and her sister did most of the actual care and feeding, all I did was make sure the DVD player was hooked up properly, and take photos where appropriate. But despite being evenly numbered (3 adults vs. 3 children), they took up all the available space in my attention. By the time they left, all I wanted to do was crawl into a book and hide, but it felt weird because I was suddenly focused on myself again. It brought into sharp relief something I've known for a while: I'm an essentially self-obsessed person. I'm even writing a blog without an audience, for god's sake. Without my wife, I would probably be a hermit.
After four years of design school, I feel I can take criticism pretty well. When I realized I was allowing myself to fall into bad habits of un-involvement and disengagement, I took it as a clue to work on change. And that is what my previous vacation provided as well. It's like stepping out of my house and noticing that it's a beautiful day. That the neighbors I've been steadfastly ignoring are waving at me as they walk the dogs. It's an opening up of my awareness to the larger world. And for a few moments I blink in the bright sun shine and tentatively wave my hand, then walk back in and close the door. But it is good to be reminded they're out there.
