And What Did We Learn?

I'm on vacation this week. At the moment I'm writing this, I'm in Newport, Rhode Island, watching the sun set.

In a way, there's no such things as a vacation anymore. Every day, even on the weekends, work emails pour into my phone and there are text messages, both of which I'm expected to read and respond to even though the people who sent them know damn well I'm on vacation. (this doesn't apply to friends, BTW. I'm glad to talk to you any time).

Normally, I know down to the hour what I have to do, where I have to go, alternate routes, extra copies of info, etc.

This time, I ignored all that. I packed and had faith that I'd get to the airport in plenty of time.  I didn't make any hard plans, which turned out fairly well because everything changed after we got to New York. But I refused to get too worried about it. Just roll with it.

Most of the time, when I get back from a vacation, I regret not doing something. This time, if I wanted to look, I looked. If I didn't want to do something, I just plainly said so. No drama, just truth. If I wanted to linger, I didn't allow myself to be rushed. And I went ahead and ate those oysters.

So even though I'm answering stupid emails from work, I'm rather relaxed this time. Even rushing around Manhattan on the hottest day of the year didn't faze me. I just let the unimportant stuff roll past me and speak up about the things that do and not regretting a single second. Probably the best vacation I've ever had. Lesson learned.