Musings on a Winter Vacation

Or...How I Survived My Alone Time.

This week ushered in my first full time schedule back to work since December 18^th.   With more than 2 weeks off, in which I had no plans of any sort¸ I sit here a changed woman.  And probably not for the better.  You have been warned.

 “Time, time, time.  See what’s become of me.”  Those are the lyrics I’m reminded of.  Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter”.  OK, I’m being a tad dramatic.  We’ll make it the Bangles version of the song instead.  To lessen the intensity.

It’s no great epiphany to realize that when I’m at work, I want to be home.  I’m certainly not unique in this regard.  What is eye-opening, however, is that when I’m home, I get bored and turn into The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  Sitting at work I have these images of all of the things I’m going to do while I’m on vacation:  Paint the bedroom, wander around NYC by myself, have wonderfully girly luncheon dates that turn into dinner parties, change my hairstyle, go to the movies, etc, etc, etc.

You know what I did during the 15 days I was off?  Slept, fed the cat, slept, fed the cat, read, slept, fed the cat, read.

The biggest accomplishment I can claim is that I finished 3 books and wrote a few poems.  When I say I did nothing, I mean I DID NOTHING.  I couldn’t even be motivated to…well, never mind.   We’ll just leave that one hanging.

My point being is that given 15 days off in which I could have accomplished any number of things, my immediate instinct was to do nothing.  Which inevitably lead to feeling down and disenchanted with my station in life.  Which then lead to a lovely period of revisiting every painful moment I ever went through.  When, you know, I actually did stuff. 

Far from being healthy, it gets downright scary.  Just how precarious is our (my) state of mind?  This thought ran through my foggy head as I fumbled through my days.  “How easy it seems to turn from a functioning member of society, into a recluse.  Into a hermit.  Into that crazy lady in the corner condo no one ever sees.”   I was shocked at how easily I slipped in to a lifestyle that was damaging to me.  Is this who I really am (I thought)?  Is this the person I would be if I didn’t have a job to go to (I questioned)?  Most importantly:  Who would I be if I had made different decisions, or tried harder?  Is my regular life someone else’s idea of a damaging lifestyle and slippery slope?

My brain’s incessant questioning and berating was taking a toll.  The vicious circle did not take long to begin:  Sleep in late and feel guilty, chastise yourself for being a worthless sack of dung, feel bad about being a worthless sack of dung, remember all of the times you felt like a worthless sack of dung, go to bed and sleep late to avoid feeling like a worthless sack of dung.  Repeat.

Awake one random early morning at 5am, I started to evaluate my life and bump it up against how the world operates, as a whole.  How the microcosm of “just me”, related to the world at large.  To break it down further, I related the world of “me” to the world of “X City”. 

In the world of “X City”, life has a pace.  Like a living organism, it feeds, it operates, it communicates, it supports.   Should you throw a large wrench in to the works, “X City” fundamentally loses its shit.  Seriously, the Department of Waste Management and the Sewage Treatment Plant are in trouble.

“X City” is always operating one second away from disaster.  Look at what happens when a major city loses power.  The city goes crazy.  Our whole life revolves around electricity.  Pretty much every external thing we do requires this power.  When a city loses the ability to “see”, they lose their ability to function.  When a city loses what they are so reliant on having - what they don’t know what to do without - the city begins to lose its connectivity to humanity.  Things that were unthinkable before start to become doable.  How quickly “X City” turns from a fully operational and productive entity, to a place of divisiveness and despair, is amazing.

Sitting there at 5am in the morning, these not-so-deep thoughts made me realize just how close we all are from destruction.  Here I was sitting home during my time off of work and dipping my toe in to a pool of despondency, meanwhile the whole world was just as close as I was to soaking their collective feet as well.

As a human race, we just don’t seem built to handle change very well.  While we will adapt, eventually, our initial reaction is to revert back to instincts that are more…primal.  Survival of the self, hiding, providing shelter, seeking food, avoiding danger.  In my own way, that’s exactly what I did when my world was shaken up by (GASP!) a vacation that lasted too long.

In the end, I think I’ve made some of my own discoveries.  Take them as you will:

• The monotony of daily life is underrated.  Having something consistent is a welcome blanket in a world full of things we have no control over
• We, as a people, are not nearly as advanced as we like to think we are
• We like to complain.  It makes us feel like we have options we wouldn't take anyway.  And that's OK
• Too much time off with nothing planned is an exceptionally bad idea
• You are who you are.  Eventually, you're going to have to come to terms with who that actually is

Happy New Year All!  I hope 2014 brings you nothing but the best of everything.  For me?  Well, I’m counting down until my next vacation 

With Love
Lady Butterfly
xoxoxo