noun
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.
something I haven't had for years and years.
Is there anyone that doesn't agree that we all need a little time off? Certainly not me. And make that a chunk of time off for me, because at this point in time, a "little" just isn't going to cut it.
You see, I haven't had a vacation---of any kind---since the summer of 2007, and even that wasn't a real vacation. It was a working vacation. I attended RWA's National Conference in Dallas. Fun, yes, because I got to spend time with my friends. But believe me, a lot has changed in five years. I'd just sold and finished my first book for Harlequin American, and I've just contract to write books eight and nine. No, working vacations, even when spent in the company of the best of friends, are not real vacations.
Even when I was married and especially AK (after kids), there weren't a lot of vacations. For a few years, before the youngest of the four girls was born, we drove to Missouri and spent long weekends at my aunt and uncle's home on Table Rock Lake. Two to three days of Silver Dollar City was fun, and the girls enjoyed it. But staying with relatives and trying to keep 1-3 boisterous girls contained proved to be stressful and very UNvacation-like.
Then there were the then-hubby's softball tournaments that I --and sometimes the girls-- attended. Vacations are not meant to be spent on hard, butt-numbing bleachers or being tied to a tight schedule of games-to-be-played. In Savannah, Georgia, I put my foot down and insisted the girls and I visited the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts in the U.S.. In Battle Creek, Michigan, we'd hoped to visit Kellogg's and watch cereal being made, but visitors were no longer allowed. (Makes one wonder just what they put in those cereal boxes...) And those were the only two national tournaments the whole family attended. He said they were vacations. Uh, no.
My last eight "vacations" haven't been. Vacations, that is. Something is wrong with this picture. My oldest daughter works for Royal Caribbean. Her working vacations are spent on cruises and in places like the Galapagos. I've rarely managed to get out of the hotels, except to attend dinners with editors (somewhat stressful) and the always fun Harlequin parties. But there have been times when I've tried to turn some of those working vacations into more fun than work. In 2000, I took the Washington, DC metro---alone---to the Washington Mall to see the Vietnam Wall. In 2003, a writer friend and I traipsed through NYC and I mastered the subway enough to get myself and even others to Ground Zero, the Harlequin offices, and yes, all the usual tourist-y spots, then back to my hotel...more than once.
So here I sit, with no chance of a vacation in sight. Not this year, at least. Whether it's time or money, it seems there's always something keeping me grounded. If I could sprout wings... Sadly, I can't. But I can DREAM, and if that's all I can do right now, then so be it. I'll take that vacation...that dream vacation...in my mind.
Islands as yet unnamed in the Caribbean, here I come! Greece, here I come! Historical places, here I come!
What and where is your dream vacation? If you could go anywhere and do anything, what would it be?
A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in. - Robert Orben
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