Are Vacations Worth It?

“Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.” – T.S. Eliot

In my last post I worried I’d lost the ability to pass time in a perfectly useless manner. Only minutes into vacation I discovered, like riding a bike, the knack comes back quickly. Though I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Saint Augustine and I do feel well rested, I can’t help but wonder if vacations are worth it.

Here are a few of the reasons I’m thinking they’re not:

Time, except in hospitals, airports and airplanes, moves at a rather fast clip. Vacation time, however, passes with the speed of light. No sooner had we set up camp in the North Beach RV Park, we found ourselves dismantling for the trip home. The long leisurely hours I’d imagined sitting around reading and doing nothing dissipated before ever materializing. Where did they go? It’s like they were sucked into a black hole before I had a chance to enjoy them.

On the trip home, we spent six hours pulled over on the shoulder of a busy highway waiting for help to arrive to repair two blown trailer tires, another couple of hours in the lovely confines of a tire repair shop, and an extra night away from home.

There’s a mound of dirty, sandy laundry sitting in front of the washer.

There is nothing to eat or drink in the house so a serious shopping trip is sorely needed.

Though most of the contents of a plastic bag full of mail will go directly into the trash, we still have to wade through it.

My ‘to do’ list, neglected for a week, now looks more like a novella than a list.

It’ll take days to catch up on the missed posts of my favorite bloggers, read and respond to email, and return phone calls.

To me, vacation is an invitation to eat and drink whatever I want. Now that it’s over, I wish I’d shown a little restraint. At my age, extra pounds adhere to my body like they were attached with super glue. Like a tacky souvenir, I’ll be reminded of my folly on a daily basis.

My muse obviously took a separate and extended vacation. She has me wondering if I’ll ever see her again.

So as I struggle to catch up and get back into my writing routine, I’m trying hard to convince myself that T.S. Eliot knew what he was talking about and that the time I wasted last week was really worth it.

Here’s a travel advisory for anyone heading to the Saint Augustine, Florida, area: I drank from the Fountain of Youth—it doesn’t work.

What do you think—are vacations worth it?

Thanks for stopping by.


Tags: T. S. Eliot, vacation, muse, guilt, travel advisory, Saint Augustine, Fountain of Youth,