The Problem With Vacations

I like when we take a day or two and go somewhere. It's interesting. Usually a bit tiring, but interesting.

The problem is it appears the rest of the world revolves around vacations. Including us. It's what we talk about when we visit with people. Maybe even what we're thinking about when we're doing normal stuff during the day.

"Hi Nana, guess what? I got a new backpack for our Trip!"

I wonder what would happen to conversations if we banned the topics of movies (seen or unseen), vacations, general health (yes, including how many colds we got last year!), and the state of the weather.

It's considered polite to actually make small talk when you visit with people, but imagine how much time we waste talking about absolutely nothing while being perfectly polite and avoiding all sticky subjects like, say, politics, religion, and what one is really thinking. Recognizing, of course, that what one is thinking is not always good fodder for discussion: "Pink-striped hair has the oddest way of making a pretty girl look funny." Even so, if what you're thinking would be a bad idea to say the solution is probably to change the way you're thinking rather than always hiding behind polite empty chatter.

On that vein, the problem with vacations is they provide such good topics of easy conversation that you end up talking to quite a few people about...well, fluff. You compare the sights, commiserate on having to buy gas at outrageous prices, tally up every meal you ate, and throw in any catastrophes that may have occurred. It's almost as though the Trip cancels out the mundane stuff that happens every day; but I wonder if the things that happen every day aren't the important events that shouldn't be shelved for the more artificial ones of vacations and other "fun" stuff.

If vacations are elevated to such important status, doesn't it steal the importance out of all the real life things that are happening all the time? If all you talk about is how much fun it's going to be when you go swimming during The Trip, won't it make running through the sprinkler today a lot less fun?

It almost seems like making a big deal of vacations takes the joy out of normal days. After all, 99% of our life is going to be spent doing the normal, everyday things that don't warrant conversation, like taking a walk in the evening or washing the clothes with your seven year old sister. At the risk of spoiling my earlier comment deleting movies from conversation topics, Star Wars has provided me with a few favorite quotes (why is it that Yoda is credited for most of them?), one of which being, "This one is always looking to the horizon, to the future. Never at where he is! What he is doing!"

So. I hereby resolve to spend as little time thinking or talking about any future trips we take as possible. When we do them, they're nice. If someone asks, I'll talk about what I enjoyed. But "matter-of-fact" is going to become my middle name.