Retirement and Vacation Appreciation

Before Retirement:

No matter what my employment or where I was employed — I always felt a little guilty for taking a vacation no matter how much in need of a break or how much a recess was deserved.

I had a sense of abandoning my post. Leaving my fellow business compadres to “mind the store” and fight the battles of business without me.

Oh, I got benefits from my vacations: I looked forward to them with unparalleled enthusiasm.

But even more enjoyable for me was to talk about how great they were after I’d returned.

I’d share pictures with all who cared (and many who didn’t, I’m sure).

Pictures that proved what a good time I had.

Lost in the pre and post hoopla was the fact, when I was actually in: Mexico, Paris, St Martin, Vermont, the Jersey Shore…. I was anxious.

Oh, yes the usual anxieties: how much to tip and to whom, how to get from point A to point B in a country where it was difficult to find someone who speaks your language, where to pee….

The big thing was those niggling thoughts about:

Was everything Ok at work?

Were things going smoothly without me=good!

Were they missing my contribution=better!

FUUUUUCK!

Retirement vacations:

After: therapy, mindfulness meditation, abstaining from smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages, cutting back on caffeinated drinks, making sleep a priority, eating only healthy foods including cutting back on my carbs and sugar intake, vowing to take no pictures and live in the moment; I’ve started to enjoy my vacations.

I’ve been uncharacteristically introspective on the topic and developed a mindset that retirement has made my whole life one continuous vacation. Any trips I take, I label as: simply a bodily change in venue.

No coworkers to take on an extra workload because of my absence.

Just my very loving and supportive kids, their wives, husbands and grandchildren who, when I show up unexpectedly at their houses around dinner time as I do frequently or when they’ve got tickets to the Phillies and are packed in the car ready to take off to go to Citizen’s Bank Park ask me jokingly:

“Hey,Dad when are you going to go on vacation?”

This story was self-published 7/11/22

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