Vacationland

I love vacationland. It’s new to me or has returned to me? After having kids the only time I captured even a semblance of vacation was when I was away from my beautiful boys.

But this year, vacationland has returned. The kids are old enough that there are moments, even an hour or more in a row, where I get to do exactly what I want to do. Or, even better, the five of us align and enjoy each other in some fun vacation activity.

Ice cream. Tennis. A bike ride. Playing tag on a playground. Browsing an art gallery (okay, that was just for the husband and I). Bonfires. The list does actually go on and on.

When it was time to head back to “the real world” I was borderline despondent.

No, I thought, I want to stay.

“Then why didn’t you stay?” A neighbor asked at our return.

I paused to think but I knew the answer right away. I had asked myself the same question as we drove the five and a half long hours home.

Why not stay?

“Because,” I said, “then vacationland would become ‘the real world’. It would lose the magic and luster that elevates all of those experiences.”

We can’t live in Disney World – we would know the back of the Stars Wars theme park is simply metal bars. If we stay at the beach year round we will notice the sand mites and the sharp shells and roll our eyes at the tourists.

We can sprinkle moments of sparkle into our everyday lives. Moments we learned from vacationland. We can read at night instead of turn on the tv as we were used to. We can grab a tennis racket and head to the courts when we have a free day. We can sneak away to a new ice cream joint in the city down the road.

But no, I don’t want to live there. I will daydream now and watch the magic build again for next time.