Published: August 07, 2008 12:01 am            

Vacation: All I never wanted

Like a lot of people, I tend to put off doing things at which I’m not very good.

When it came to homework, it was advanced math. Wrapping my head around a calculus problem was much more difficult than composing an essay or reading about American history. As a result, I would wait until the last minute and then rush through my math homework.

Around the house it is the handyman tasks that receive the bulk of my ineptitude-prompted procrastination. The list of things to paint, repair, and replace has grown so long it would take the crew from “This Old House” three complete seasons to get it all done.

This tendency to put off doing things that don’t play to my strengths has also affected my life as a vacationer. Historically, at least during my adult life, I’ve not been very good at vacationing. I’ve got some friends who are pros at it. These people seem to always be on vacation — summers in Tuscany, winters in Vail, spring break at Disney. Do these people ever work?

There are several factors that lend to my status as a sub-par vacationer. First, travel stresses me out. I’m on and off airplanes and in and out of hotels about 25 times each year for business. Even when traveling for leisure, it feels a lot like work. Second, I have some penny-pinching tendencies and typical vacation-paced spending keeps me up at night. Third (and related to two and three) I get very tired, very quickly of eating out.

So over the course of my 20-plus years of adulthood, I’ve taken very few vacations. Long weekends? Sure. Quick trips to see family? Absolutely. Week-long (or longer) getaways? Not so much. Even our honeymoon was four days, three nights.

I’m averaging week-or-longer vacations about once per decade. In 1998, BK (before kids), my wife and I spent nearly a month in the UK — England and Scotland. For awhile, a month-long holiday was like money in the vacation bank. It trumped most of the stories our friends would tell. But here we are ten years later and it sounds pretty sad to tell people your last vacation was a decade ago.

In an effort to do some vacation self-improvement, I decided to delve into my lack of desire for getaways. Maybe there was a pill I could take that would cause me to buy Hawaiian shirts and want to sip umbrellaed drinks from coconut cups.

While doing some research I discovered that the word “vacation” comes from the Latin “vacare,” which means to empty or to void. That definition seems to fit for most of the people I know. They spent 50 weeks each year getting filled up with stuff and two weeks of vacation to empty it all out. It seems to me, however, that you get filled right back up as soon as you get back to your non-vacation life.

If that is what vacationing is all about, no wonder it doesn’t interest me. I like my life. There’s not much inside that needs taken to the metaphorical curb.

Digging a little deeper, I came upon some thoughts from Father Cantalamessa, the official preacher at the Vatican. He says that a vacation is not an escape but rather a time to abstain from normal activities to concentrate on something different, something essential. This is a take on vacation that makes some sense, focusing on family, marriage, faith or even focusing within.

I decided then to make up for lost time in 2008. My column didn’t run last week because I was on vacation, a 10-day vacation. I was heeding the Father’s sage advice and concentrating on something essential — being dad. My boys and I splashed in the ocean, played mini golf inside a volcano, spent lots of quarters in the Myrtle Beach arcade and enjoyed tons of other family activities. We also had down time, just hanging out in our rented beach house where we had all the comforts of most home, including a fully-functional kitchen.

This winter, I’ll focus on being a spouse, as my wife and I get a change of latitude without the kids.

I’m not ready to get a timeshare in Margaritaville quite yet, but I certainly don’t plan on waiting another 10 years before my next vacation.

        

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