Five years ago, just before Jonathan went into the ARMY for four years, we decided that we should go on vacation (or as I recently found out they say in Europe, we went on holiday). We took a week long, spring break trip to Boston to visit our friend Russell and New York City as well as a stop in Maine overnight. It was a very short and really busy trip, having stopped and walked to just about every destination we could but it was absolutely amazing! It was my first time I’d ever been to the Big Apple, and I knew instantly from my first ride and first steps, I was hooked. Since then, I’ve taken two more trips to the city, both which seemed to be entirely too short and way too busy!
It wasn’t long after this that Jonathan left for his military service. He decided to enroll in the ARMY as it was his best option at the time. Before he left, we had talked about many different things, including how we were just stuck not going anywhere. I was coming off of a really busy year and a half back home from university, having taken classes almost full-time, non-stop since January of ’99 with two semesters of 18 and 21 hour work loads. I needed a huge break and Boston and NYC were perfect. Our original intent, however, was to leave at the beginning of summer 2000 and drive. Take a huge, summer long roadtrip across the US. That, however, changed when Jonathan decided to sign up.
Three years and four schools later, I finally graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Jonathan’s service ended a few months earlier, and during the whole time of his service, I reminded him that we had to take a long roadtrip. It was just something that we both knew we had to do, although his mind had almost changed by the time we went because he was in a very serious relationship. It ended up, however, that we went.
This, again, was my personal vacation. It lasted three and a half weeks, driving from Houston to LA up to Yellowstone and back down to Houston. Every day had its purpose, either to drive as far as we could or spend it visiting and looking around the areas. We spent a night in the Grand Canyon, a day in San Diego, an evening at McDonald Observatory, and a few hours at Crater Lake. We did a drive by of so many other areas that we couldn’t spend much time in one place. This, in a nutshell, was most of my vacation.
Does this kind of vacation sound familiar? I find that the term vacation is so relative. When most people think of the term vacation, they think about getting away to a remote place, relaxing, and enjoying the time off. Vacation, to me, has always involved seeing and doing as much as I can in the amount of time given. There’s almost never any down time because I have so many other places I haven’t visited. What’s the point of going somewhere, such as NYC, and not going to see places like the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty if you haven’t yet? Those are the icons of this city. Still, I would love to have one vacation in my life where I’m not constantly thinking, “What can I do next, what else did I miss?”.
What plagues me on vacation has always plagued me in life as well. There are so many different things that I hope to do, hope to see, hope to experience, and I’m constantly thinking, “What can I do next, how can I see more, am I missing out on anything else?”. It’s almost as if I’ll never be happy because there’ll be so many things out there that I need to accomplish.
This, however, is not true. Given the state of my life right now, I’m completely happy and content with where I am and have been. Sure, there are many things I still wish to do, many things I wish I could have changed, but truly I’m where I should be. My vacation from life has been awesome, being able to do so many things. But I am now at a point where I should look at getting back to reality. I wish this time of my life could go on forever, that I could continue to take vacations to remote places to learn more about the world in which we live. The reality of this is that I need to make a huge change in order to make this happen. I need something in my life that will help me continue to do and see those things I love doing and seeing.
I am so far from knowing my purpose and what I’m supposed to do, but I’ve only just begun discovering and realizing how much fun it can be trying to figure it all out. I hope that with this inevitable change comes much joy and pleasure, no matter if it’s not exactly what I want or need at the time. As long as I have my goals and dreams, I will stay motivated to never give up.