Remember when you were a kid and your parents or some other sage would tell you that the older you got, the quicker time went? I wish I knew why no one followed up with “Unless you have a vacation coming up.” They probably left that off knowing we would figure that part out on our own.
We leave for New Orleans next Wednesday, and this entire week has slogged by. Or at least I have that feeling in my head. I’m sure the week has gone by the same as others. Today is Friday after all, which means I don’t have too much longer to wait. However, vacation is peeking around the corner, and I don’t know how much focus I have left.
Not the thing you want your clients to hear (or read), of course. Each one knows for certain that you are chained to your desk all day, every day, hammering away on their project. Because work. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing, right?
Except I find more and more when I get to the end of the summer, no matter what other trips I may have taken, my brain is ready to unplug and spend a week just enjoying myself. No thinking about work. No opening my laptop. No emails. No blogging or podcasting. Just a lot of sleeping till 9 or 10. Then leisurely moving through the day.
However, some summers past weren’t quite like this. More than once, the week leading up to vacation was absolute chaos. Working through the entire weekend. Sending out invoices. Paying bills. Finally shutting off my computer at 5 on Tuesday. Then finally feeling my body relax as we lifted off the runway.
Not a great way to start a vacation, and I am very happy not to have that experience any more.
I did find out Thursday I’m not the only one ready to go. I received a text from my friend Bill in the early afternoon about sooo not wanting to work. After an extremely stressful three weeks, he’s been happy to be “normal” busy. Unfortunately, he still has a full week to go before he heads to Spain. Fingers crossed he has enough brain power to last until then.
I’m sure I can last until Wednesday morning. Or Tuesday afternoon. Or morning. I haven’t quite decided yet. However, I wish my parents were right, and the days were moving faster. Because there’s gumbo and po-boys in my future, and they can’t get here fast enough.
