Back To Life, Back To Reality…Why Can’t Every Day Be a Vacation Day?

I just got back from a week in LA visiting a lot of friends from various times in my life as well as celebrating my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah and, suffice it to say, re-entry is definitely tough.

While I certainly can’t complain arriving home to 80 degree temperatures when the vast majority of the country is still dealing with crazy winter storms, sitting here at my computer in Tampa I can’t help but feel like the ridiculous number of emails, messages and reminders of things I MUST DO  is making me want to crawl back into my vacation hole and never return.

Call me crazy but, why can’t every day be like the previous 7 days of fun, frolicking and freedom?

I suppose if I won the lottery or found out some long lost relative left me a big inheritance I could be on permanent vacation mode but the odds are sufficiently stacked against me it seems.

So here I sit…the morning after… mapping out the rest of my day and it doesn’t look pretty.

No lemoncello iced tea at my old camp friend’s fabulous store…

American Tea Room

only to be followed by a famous chopped salad lunch at La Scala in Beverly Hills.

(Sorry no salad photo…too busy talking…but it was really good…trust me)

No long conversation over a bottle of wine hanging out at my post college roommate’s Benedict Canyon home …

No 2 hour power walk along Manhattan Beach checking out the very cool architecture of the bazillion dollar beach homes

and lunch at Lemonade with a high school friend

(OMG!!!! I could eat there every day) …

Ok, so I am possibly the worst at taking selfies but these visual memories for me are priceless and in my mind, I will travel back to these moments whenever I want a mental break from the monotony of any day.

Is that enough of a daily “mini vacation”? Eh…probably not for most of us. Yet the demands of life in our society put the majority of us in a kind of full throttle mode during the work week. And as much as we read and hear the advice to take the time every day for some “vacation” moments like going to the gym, having coffee with a friend or maybe even just sitting still and breathing, for many, if it isn’t scheduled in our smart phones, it simply doesn’t happen.

Planning a few extra days like I did in LA to see as many people as I could took a lot of coordination. Trust me, I relied heavily on Tripit for keeping all of the details in one place and providing quick access to addresses to get me from point A to point Z and all of the points in between.

Planning a few extra moments every day to feel like you can be “away from it all” may not require a special travel app, but it still requires putting forth some degree of effort.  Hopefully, though, once you are in those moments, you savor them. And when you have to head back to life, back to reality again you are refreshed and ready to go.

That’s it for now…#BlackerOut