Perfect Timing

Many people including myself said, "This vacation is perfect timing." I even wrote about it. Then, when I got there, when I was finally in the room with a view of the beach, I wanted to go home. Lying on my side facing Matt the first night I admitted, "I'm homesick." I didn't know where the feeling came from, or why, but I felt it and I let myself feel it. Sure I made some excuses, it was a long flight, our room wasn't ready until 4 hours after we got here, the room isn't as cushy as I'd hoped, the food is expensive. I was in a place where there were no expectations, no plans, nowhere I had to be, nothing I had to do that could distract me and the feelings continued to flow through me, I wanted to run from it, back to a City of constant movement and get started on "other" things.

The feeling remained as I tried to cover it up with focusing on my current environment and what I could do there. But it was to no avail, I had to feel the homesickness, the sadness, the loss, the anxiety, I had to let myself explore those emotions and not need to run to where I felt most comfortable. So I did, and it helped. It's okay to be on vacation in a beautiful resort, I could still be sad and want to go home, I didn't have to want to be there. And, in some ways it helped to be there. I couldn't run away from the emotions, I couldn't escape the fact that the last year of my life was intense, insane, filled with change and upheaval.

I realized that I'd gotten wrapped up in continuing to "be okay", to move on with life, to move quickly and effortless because I was good at it. At first it felt scary and confusing to be filled with sadness multiple days in a row, like I was supposed to be "over it". And then I realized this was how I felt last year, I was a wreck, sad, scared, anxious. I don't even remember most of last summer- I was in a fog. It was completely natural and normal for my body to be returning to that cloudy place of emotion. It didn't matter that I was highly functional and had just moved, unpacked, found a job and settled in just over a month, I had to let the sadness flow through me. Besides, I had nothing else to do.

So, although upon first arrival I felt as if the vacation was not so perfect timing, in the end it was. I couldn't find ways to ignore what I was feeling, and therefore I was able to process and heal more fully, which is really what vacation is about, right? Giving your body the time and energy to recharge, recuperate, relax and most importantly for me have the space for needed release.