Vacations are critically important to our mental and physical well-being. No one’s internal battery power is inexhaustible, and we all need to recharge. Being in a new place, our imaginations can be fired with an expanded sense of what is possible. Even if the trip doesn’t go as planned- typhoons, a bad hotel, Bali belly – which may at the time seem like awful outcomes, new memories are created, which we may hopefully hold for a long time. These new emotional experiences are how we mark our memories, and more memories are a good thing. The day-to-day routine is mixed up, and we return with fresh eyes, new energy, new perspective, and a new lease on life.
Today I am trying to force myself out of some negative Nancy thinking. The thing is, I don’t really like to travel. It is not that I don’t like new places and new experiences- I devour them. It is the anticipation of getting to and from that I resist. Air travel, which in the dinosaur past was a glamorous treat, is, well, something that now must be endured. It is not even that the 10 hours locked in a high-speed metal tube is all that bad; it is just my bad attitude about maybe having to do it. Once in a new place, my thinking will reverse to the other extreme of oggling real estate and fantasizing about moving lock, stock, and barrel to whatever far-flung location I may be in. Tanzania? Sure, why not. It has dawned on me that, despite all my proselytizing to the contrary, I may actually be embarrassingly resistant to the idea of change.
This morning I read a piece in the NYT on how Paris is back in form. Now that gets my attention. That will get me to start some planning. Who cares if there is a convenient gym, forget about the nearest health food store, this is Paris for god’s sake. All those things will be right where we left them when we return home. The finances of this can be quite manageable, for as with many people, we have burgeoning frequent flyer accounts from all those miles not spent in pandemic lockdown. Travel tip: having done a bit of investigation already, the outrageous airfares currently listed start to plummet towards the end of August. The kiddos have to go back to school, and not so many people are traveling long over Labor Day. Just writing this, I can feel my desire to travel, especially if Paris is the lure, overcome my resistance to change.
Onward and upward,
David
