I thought I was being smart this year by saving a good chunk of my vacation time from work, until the off season when everyone else had used theirs up… it turns out I was just putting off the pressure of having to do something.   I am not quite a hermit yet; however, I do live a quiet and subdued lifestyle… and I am comfortable with that.  However there is a certain type of pressure to do something with your time off, because it is a certainty that SOMEONE will ask you what you did while you were away from work… it is just a matter of timing once you return to the office.  Doing simple things like sleeping, reading, or fixing things around the house apparently don’t count as doing something on vacation time.

I didn’t realize until recently, that there is an unwritten law that you must go somewhere for at least PART of your time off; it’s always the first question that people will ask you when they see you… “Where did you go?”   I have also found that it doesn’t help to make an open statement of “oh, I thought I would head out of town for a couple of days, check out a few things and maybe visit with family”… people remember that, and you WILL be asked if you did indeed do any of those things… then you are stuck trying to make up a reason of why you didn’t do any of it.  There always seems to be a sense of disappointment when people find out that you really didn’t do anything, except to sit around, skip shaving, and share a bag of corn chips with the dog while watching stupid movies.  I am starting to think that people want to live vicariously through others when it comes to vacation time… perhaps it is just to come up with ideas of something to do on THEIR vacation time… or perhaps they just want to know that they are not as boring as the other people they know. 

 I have decided that before the next round of vacation time kicks in for the New Year, I am going to come up with a list of activities and details about each thing, then I shall file it away for the next time I am off… that way I can do nothing “pressure free” and STILL sound somewhat entertaining when I get back to work.  Problem solved, unless I mention something someone has actually done… then it will be back to the drawing board, yeah… I better think this through a little more.

Until next time.