Why do I have such negativity about vacations? Every time I look forward to a vacation by saying "oh man I can't wait until blah blah", I always follow it up by saying "it's going to suck when it ends, I'm really dreading that".
Just now, a few minutes ago, I tweeted the following line: "I can't believe in one week we'll be in San Pancho, Mexico. I'm already sad about the fact that it'll end... and it hasn't even started." I know how awesome our week there will be there, and yet I'm focusing on the negative that it will come to an end.
It's such a glass half empty attitude and I hate it. Maybe it's because it makes me readily aware of how quickly life passes us by with out our even knowing. It puts a start time and and an end time on our life events. Instead of focusing on the time in between, I focus on the time after the end.
There is something I started doing when Liz and I went on our honeymoon to Hawaii. We had gotten champagne and we took it up to the top deck and drank it as our cruise ship passed by the most beautiful scenery Hawaii has to offer, The Na Pali Coast on the western said of Kauai (the most western island). We sat there for a while and at one point I got up and stood at the railing. I feel like it was yesterday. I can remember the moment because I was doing my absolute best to stop time. Standing there, I was trying so hard to stop my mind, to try and stop time, to take in the moment, to never ever EVER forget it. I keep thinking that maybe, if just for an instant, if I'm able to take myself and allow the roots of the moment to grab hold of my mind, to make a conscious and concerted effort to never forget where I was and what I was doing, then maybe the time we spent will never be lost. Remove the start time and remove the end time because that moment has no start or end. It stands alone in itself.
I love thinking back to those time-stopping moments. My natural inclination with vacations is to dread the end just as much as I anticipate the beginning. Trying to stop time and ingrain those moments in my mind is my way of overcoming that.
I went back through our picture archives and found this picture of our champagne toast taken right before my time-stopping moment. (In case it's not obvious, this is from July 2007):
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Vacation Negativity
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1 comments:
Wow, the pressure is on here in San Pancho. Just a word of warning...there has been quite a bit of yelling/screaming/tantrum throwing from a few members of the Dickman family lately (I'll let you guess who that might be). It may not turn out to be the most relaxing vacation ever. Feel free to, at any time, leave the house and go for a walk. Or lock yourselves upstairs where, from what I've been told, the tantrums fade into the noise native to Mexico.
By: Hillary on February 3, 2010 at 10:53 PM
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