Vacation Blues

By Mark Saleski

What's Going On Here?

Every summer, my wife and I partake of that great American tradition - the vacation. We pack up the Jeep, load in the dog, and head to our favorite getaway spot - a small town on the coast of Maine. Over those two weeks, that rental house becomes out new home as we make our best attempt at sloughing off the dead skin of the working, "responsible" life.

So what's the problem? Over the last couple of years, we've found that the end of vacation and the transition back to 'normal' life has caused what seems like an inordinate amount of grief. Should two grown adults feel sorrow verging on depression because of this? What's going on here? Does this happen to anybody else?

Causes: A First Pass

While trying to work my way through this situation, a couple of seemingly obvious causes surface: our attraction to this town as "The Perfect Place," and the yearly vacation as a marker for the passage of time.

Had the little coastal retreat become idealized in our minds as the perfect town? The place where nothing ever goes wrong? The ultimate buffer between us and the rest of our lives? No doubt, there is some truth in this idea. There's a reason we refer to these places "getaways." It has slowly dawned on me that this particular location, because we've been there so many times, has indeed become that place. The fictional Shangri-La.

Time passes us by (or sometimes: drags us along) and there's not a whole lot to be done about it. If things are going well, perhaps it's not a problem. There are times though, when the 365th day clicks by – again – and serves to do nothing more than remind us that we're not completely in control. That we, our loved ones, EVERYBODY – is headed in that same direction - and that maybe we should be making a little more haste, making those plans more of a reality.

The Reality

Though the reality of our situation does contain shades of the above elements, there are a couple of very concrete issues that bring on the vacation blues: my career difficulties and our epiphany about "community."

I've been writing software for almost 25 years. Like most careers, it's had its moments of fantastic reward as well as grief-inducing frustration. Writing has been a more recent vocation, one that has taken hold of me with surprising force. Now that I'm so heavily involved with it, I can't imagine doing anything else. Of course, this makes for a particular brand of cognitive dissonance. Two weeks on vacation go by during which I am nothing but a writer. That time passes and the reality is that I must go back to the world of networks and control systems. It doesn't feel quite right anymore, but what to do? What's the right thing to do when the community you've been a part of for so long leaves you with that "outside looking in" feeling?

Well, "community" can mean many different things. There are communities of place and communities of like minds. Our vacation spot is the most basic of communities, the small town. This year, we finally realized that this place's "small townness" plays a huge factor in our perceptions. Physically, we can walk anywhere. Nothing is more than ten easy minutes away. But convenience is not the issue. It's the feeling that we're a part of the town. Even though we are tourists, many of the town's residents become familiar - the mailman, that waitress, the clerk at the bookstore. This is an experience that's difficult to come by in suburbia, one that resonates with us to an alarming degree.

Outlook

We are certain that our tourist status will one day be erased - we will move to this town. One community problem solved. In the meantime, the career angst will continue. While it doesn't move me toward a solution, I take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone in my occupational ambivalence. I'll deal with the slow move toward a conclusion by imagining my future profession, by wrapping myself in the written word, and by looking forward to those two weeks on the coast...