The Eighteen Hour Vacation

Wouldn’t it be great if life stopped for a few minutes so that we could catch our breath? Every week I start out by saying, 'This week won’t be AS busy as last week'… and then I start working, realize the refrigerator is out of everything, someone sticks a lego up their nose, and the dog eats a sock. Vacations are great—they refuel us for a few days, remind us how the ‘other half’ live, and allow us the opportunity to nap in the middle of the afternoon. BUT they also cause us to gain 5lbs, fall way behind in work, and we end up with a laundry mountain that rivals Mt. Everest. The very first minute the airplane touches down, the stress starts creeping back, and by the time you drag your over-stuffed suitcase (full of exceedingly dirty laundry and damp bathing suits) to the car, your mind is already in overdrive about what NEEDS to get done.

And that’s how my week went. I successfully returned from an amazing vacation in Miami to a boat load of work, soccer camp, and refrigerator that was so empty that even the ketchup had gone MIA. I had twenty one messages blinking on the answering machine, my son had suddenly outgrown his soccer cleats, and my dog had developed a new obsession with door trim. Within 24 hours of being home, the vacation to Miami was a distant memory…. that is, except for the bills that were rolling in at an alarming and (exceedingly stressful rate).

The post-vacation-let-down is enough to cause a well-balanced female to consider lighting herself on fire and throwing herself from the upstairs window…. But to the geographical single Army-mom, it was enough to cause me to crawl under the covers, pull the blankets over my sunburned head, and respond to every question, “Right. I promise to get right to that. Check back with me in a week.” My to-do list had become so seriously ridiculous, that I found myself adding , “brush teeth” and “hit the snooze button” just so I could actually check something off. And let me tell you, there is nothing more rewarding then having a to-do list of 55 items when 44 of them are crossed off! So what if half of them were accomplished before I actually got out of bed.

So what can you do when life presents you with the post-vacation- meltdown?? The answer is unbelievably simple—grab some girlfriends and plan the EIGHTEEN hour vacation. I called my best friend—and partner in pretend-wedding-crime, Loren-- and we decided that a girls night to Austin was absolutely essential to our survival. Dinner, margaritas, and an excuse to buy a new pair of shoes was all that was needed to temporarily refuel our overworked and now financially-crippled souls. We made plans, called a couple of our other XX-chromosome counterparts, and headed to the city of Austin. Eighteen hours later, I was back to soccer-mom mentality, and home in my living room snuggling and pretending that I DIDN’T think the stars of Yo Gabba Gabba smoked crack.

That’s all it took: eighteen hours, five crazy girl friends, and the realization that a life without friends would be unimaginably tragic. Vacations are amazing—and let’s face it, we all fantasize about a stress-free week on the beach, shopping for new $300 heels, and sipping calorie free fruity cocktails(this is my damn fantasy, so let’s not point out the obvious discrepancies with this statement) by the waves. But reality likes to kick us in the face when we return. Thank God, I have friends to lean on. Thank God, I am not walking this journey alone. Let’s keep this blog real, a vacation is worth a thousand words. Five crazy girlfriends are worth infinitely more.

(The Eighteen Hour Girls)