It’s Sunday and my vacation week is coming to a close and I can confidently say I do not want another one until COVID is manageable. Because frankly sitting on the couch is no way to use your hard earned vacation hours.
While I did get away for a few days and it was lovely ( I actually got engaged during that getaway after a 6.5 year courtship) and got to see a body of water that was beautiful and an adequate stand in for my beloved ocean. It wasn’t nearly long enough. We returned home and spent the next 5 days sitting in the living room.
Yes, I went to Iowa City once and a couple trips to Walmart and saw a few friends. But that is hardly worthy of my hard earned vacation hours or is it?
It was relaxing and I didn’t have to go anywhere or do any real work, no-one was sick, time meant nothing and has since March. But what deems a really good vacation? spending a butt load of money? Maybe if you are going somewhere exotic, traveling to your destination? Trying new things? Or is it just being disconnected from your everyday life.
In the time of COVID we have no routines, the one where we go to work daily was ripped from us. And that break affects everything else in our routine. Nothing is routine and may never be again. Everything we do has taken on a new face. Maybe we are essentially on vacation every single day. That is what the online life has given us. Go with the flow living. At least for me. For others, not so much.
I have many projects and working up the energy to accomplish them is so difficult during this time. Sometimes I muster up the energy and sometimes I just can’t. It is as if we are suspended in time. Waiting for normal life to resume. But maybe this is normal. Hanging at home. Doing stuff with family, becoming tight cohesive units or completely blowing apart.
So what do we do with that desire to see things or visit places unknown, to wander? We can escape with a book, begin an exercise program at home, watch travel videos or stream some far away land into our living room. All adequate fillers, but the ache to travel is still there, teasing us with cheap flights, reassurance that the air is clean and better inside the plane. Luring us to travel, because frankly I need it. Without the ability and the freedom to travel, we become stagnant and isolated in our own little sliver of the world.
And all this lack of mobility leaves us hanging and for those like me, who have turned 60 and are aching to do something wonderful with my life. Yes something nurturing, giving back, making sure that my sliver of the world is better and that I helped somehow. There are so many people who are needing help, but how do I contribute in a a beneficial way? I ask myself this daily.
Of course volunteering comes to mind, but where? how? what do people need? I don’t even know where to begin to look. But I find it eating away at me that I am wasting time. my brain screams at me… DO SOMETHING! Do not be selfish. But even volunteer efforts seem thwarted during this time.
I do the best I can to keep myself motivated and in the present time. I get up early everyday and try to feel productive in some way at the end of the day.
I do know this.. if this is what retirement feels like, I am not ready and may never be.
Tomorrow I return to work, grateful and rested until the next vacation.
Until the Next Time,
Jeany
Eclectic Energy 