Finding a vacation state of mind

On our drive home from our beach vacation, we stopped to stretch our legs, and we fell into conversation with someone. She asked when we had gotten up that morning to pack the car and hit the road to avoid beach traffic. I admitted that it had been fairly early.

“That’s the problem with vacations,” she said. “You come home more tired than when you left.”

I was a bit taken aback.

It’s true, of course, that vacations can be tiring. That can be especially true if you are on the go much of the time, if you have trouble sleeping in a bed that’s not yours, if you’re caring for young children, or if you get up early to travel home. Even the most relaxing vacation probably can’t leave you completely well-rested and rejuvenated.

But vacations are so worthwhile. They introduce us to new or different experiences. They can even give us more time with people we love. They add peace and perspective. They offer an escape, a respite from ordinary life.

After months of living with the pandemic, going to the beach offered a change of scenery, along with some physical distance from our normal everyday life. I had underestimated just how restorative it would be to be in a new place—seeing and hearing the ocean during our first trip away after months of quarantine and lockdown and isolation.

The problem with vacations, I suppose, is that they end. But that’s part of the joy of vacations, too—that the time is limited and special. We move back into ordinary time, trying to hold onto the sense of peace and rest we discovered while we were vacationing. It might not last. And I’m a big believer that you should always be planning your next vacation-like experience—even if it’s just an afternoon off with a friend or a family day trip.

But this summer especially, even when our vacation time ends, I’m trying to live in a vacation state of mind, carrying a sense of peace and grace and calm.

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit,” St. Francis de Sales said. “Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

We might not be sitting on a beach today, but I hope we can still strive to find to take some distance from the problems of the day and find a sense of inner peace.

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