Vacation

Dean and I and my parents have been on vacation for one week now. We came to Seattle to visit our daughter and grandaughter. Our original plan was to visit them to give them a break while thier husband and father and our son-in-law is deployed in Haiti, helping in the earthquake recovery (2010).

Turns out we not only came to visit them but brought our parents who also needed a get-a-way. They had been through some parental trauma in the last year and that trauma had taken it's toll on thier nerves and was actually diminishing thier state of well-being and happiness, so we put them in the car and we all came.

We have not always been good at vacating life. Everyone should be good at this because life can get pretty busy, tough, strenuous, mentally taxing, physically taxing and not to mention down-right dull at times.

This vacation has been good for Dean and I because in the act of vacating our day to day life we were also helping someone else vacate thiers and we all needed the rest that getting away from life provides.

The dictionary holds the following definitions for the word "vacation."

1.a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday: Schoolchildren are on vacation now.
2.a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normal activities of law courts, legislatures, etc., are suspended.
3.freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.
4.an act or instance of vacating.

I would say that we have failed in accomplishing number 2 above in some respect because our vacations for the most part the past several years have been vacations of necessity which don't really count as vacations do they? Going to see family, attending a funeral, helping a sick child while necessary and needed can put more stress on you than if you had stayed home but we do all these things because we are needed and we love someone else and want to help them in times of crises.

This vacation, we have spent much time laughing, giggling, eating, resting, sight-seeing, loving, sleeping, and resting. I think we have met all of the objectives listed in the dictionary and then some.

Today I went to lunch with my daughter and her daughter and that was perhaps the most joyful part of our vacation because they are so perfect in my eyes and remind me that I want to be more like them - - perfect in almost every way.

Travelling with my parents has also been fun. I haven't done that since I was a very young woman and before that a very young girl. My husband and I have been apart for the better part of the last three years so being together on this vacation has been a wonderful reunion for us all.

Life is tough, vacations are needed and we should never put them off because we are too busy. That is just indication that we need vacations more than anyone else. Hello Realization - I'm one who had to be hit over the head to wake up and vacate life!