I’m sure you’ve all either heard or said “you need a vacation when you come back from your vacation.” It doesn’t matter if you’re out of town for a month, a week, or just a few days; by the time you return, you need at least 48 hours in which to recover.This past week, I spent 3 days in Cadiz. Thursday afternoon, Friday, Saturday, and returned home early Sunday morning. I didn’t do too much any of those days – I did stay out late two nights – but really, the days were lazily spent to say the least. By the time I returned home Sunday I was exhausted. Two late nights, and primary supervision of 2 children under the age of 7 can really wear you out. So most of Sunday, I spent sleeping. Almost all of Sunday, I spent in my pajamas in bed. And just to make sure that I didn’t wake up too early, Sunday night, I capped off the day with a benedryl – hard drugs in my old age. And when I startled myself awake (I had forgotten to set my alarm but my internal clock awakened me at 5:45 a.m), I was no more prepared to get up and function as I was the day before. I seriously contemplated calling in sick.
It seems to me to be an odd phenomena, really. The recovery time needed for the break that you take from your every day life. Travelling is just a tiring experience, unless you are going somewhere. When you’re going to Florida, you can get up and on the road at 3:00 a.m., drive for 12 hours and be ready to have a party when you arrive. But when you’re coming home . . . you struggle to get into your car by check out time at 10:00, stop every 2 hours to pee, get something to drink, stretch your legs, let your heathen children run free so that you don’t intentionally wreck the car and put yourself out of their misery. And when you come back, you feel like what I would imagine I would feel like after running a marathon – o.k. 2 miles – who are we kidding, I’d never be able to run a marathon as I’d most likely stroke out around 2 ½ miles – and again – belly fat flapping in the breeze is one of the most annoying sounds in the world – and no one wants to run holding their stomach with both hands to prevent it. You get the drift.
The only really good thing about getting back from vacation is that your children, when they return, are oh so happy to back among the familiar. They like having their toys, games, rooms around them. And they can be counted on to play for at least 6 hours without bickering. My husband squanders that time with unpacking, starting laundry, cleaning up. It’s sad that he wastes the time that way. I, prepared person that I am, have already separated dirty laundry from clean (I will wash clothes when I’m at my families so that I don’t have to wash it when I get home – I don’t like the downstairs laundry room). So I dump the dirty laundry, change into my pajamas, and hop into bed with the clicker – find an episode of CSI or some such, and immediately fall asleep. And though it has taken some 9 years and numerous arguments -- and if I’m honest – hissy fits – my family is now adhering to the rule that if someone is asleep, we don’t wake them unless it’s time for work or an emergency. I only trained them in the rule so that eventually I could sleep uninterrupted. It’s finally paid off. Though, I had to add the emergency / work clause because Elijah woke up Isaiah the other day (Isaiah had fallen asleep early around 6:00 p.m. but would have slept the night if he wasn’t awakened) – and when I got mad at him, he told me that I woke him every day and he didn’t want to be awakened at all, and that wasn’t fair. Which was a good point, and thus the clause.
So anyway, for all intents and purposes, I made it through the day, was only slightly tired, and not really grumpy at all. I was, however, so glad that I taught resource room and didn’t have to have to come up with really fancy lesson plans with the intent of keeping 20 kids on task. But the vacation recovery does make you come into work on your first day back and immediately count the days until your next day off. Mine comes in 16 days (12 if you don’t count weekends).
