One of the things that I get out of vacations is the chance to step out of my daily routine and really explore what my life has been about this past year.
Life has been good this year. I can’t deny that. To say otherwise would be a grave disservice to those that don’t have it as good as me. But even when things are going good they can be daunting, challenging, and otherwise put you into a state where you’re stretched to the limit.
Such a thing was and is happening to me. I have so many things going that some days I am left in state of paralysis jut trying to decide what, where, and when to do things.
This trip was mandatory.
Planning began months ago. Maybe even as far back as New York. I sort of knew I would need it even then. The first step as always is figuring out where to go and what to do. I began with the most improbable and impractical of destinations.
The Maldives islands. Literally on the other side of the world. Why there? Cause it was there? I don’t know. I wanted something exotic. Something no one else I knew could say they’d done. A friend pointed out that this would entail 4 days of solid travel on my part. Sort of killed that option right then and there.
I started on a long list of location in this hemisphere that I could enjoy closer to home. Honestly nothing was sticking. I haven’t been to these places and I do find them to be alluring but the plain fact of the matter is that it would be another vacation alone. I could vacation anywhere in the world and still be alone and quite frankly I had already been there and done that.
So things sort of went into limbo till late August until a chance text conversation sparked things up again.
A friend of mine was looking for a travel partner to share in her vacation. She was in need of her own vacation to sort things out. She suggested we team up for a joint vacation. I thought about it less than a second and agreed. She was thrilled at the idea and we began making our plans.
Planning was….daunting. We had about 2 or so months to plan, book, and prepare and we were both busy beyond belief. We floated several dates, nothing was open, she was busy, then I was busy. Nothing was getting done.
But seemingly at the end of our tether we found a resort (or rather she did) that we both agreed we liked. The dates were open, the flights available, the booking agent was cooperative and with a little disbelief on both our parts we found that we had done it. We had booked our vacation.
We met up in early November and we couldn’t quite believe it. I still don’t to a degree.
With less than a month I began putting together some necessities for the trip and clearing my schedule for things to come. The last was the hardest part. With the way that modern office life is, we can’t really afford to ignore work totally and we can’t totally unplug. I had to scramble to get a cushion of time opened up for the trip. I imagine she had to do the same.
Finally the day came and I found myself at the airport waiting in the ticket line. That’s when thing took a turn for the worse…
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