the hump-day of vacation

I'm on blessed vacation at the moment, eleven consecutive days free from the rigors of daygig. Now on day # 6, which puts me at the exact midpoint. Five down, five to go. This is the hump-day of my vacation.

Every three or four months I manage to have enough leave hours built up in there to cut myself loose for a week or so. At this point, I earn 12.5 vacation hours every month, which gives me a week(37.5 hours)every three months.


This is a slightly longer vacation period than my usual-and-customary five days, one I waited a bit longer to enjoy. I'm trying to adopt the 'type B' approach of less frequent but longer stretches, over my heretofore 'type A' burn-it-as-you-earn-it policy. Longer waits but more time to work with once you get there. And you can make the wait a big epic thing: I had weekly sticky notes with descending numbers starting with 8 to mark my increasing proximity to the goal.

Next time out, I've decided, is a full two weeks. Sixteen consecutive days free from the rigors of daygig. I'll have to wait until March of 2011, which is a haul, but can be done. A distance that can be traversed. Talk around the office(a place not without its fun, but certainly not without its stress either) is that you need two weeks, since the first is spent just unwinding- decompressing is another term I've heard used.

My old work environment of the last 2 and a half years was less stressful, and thus you didn't have the unwind, decompression time to get in on your vacations. So when you took a week off, you didn't spend the first couple days in recovery. I took a week off every third month, like clockwork, and my system, my threshold was set to a quarterly vacation schedule. I'd start "needing" that time off every three months.

Coming back to a more stressful(but fun!)work environment, I realize that my threshold was set on WUSS. So I'm pushing that envelope. Less frequent but longer vacations. I'm still enjoying my eleven days, even though it is just a glorified week, a week that knows somebody. But becoming increasingly aware that a week just ain't enough, at least not in our office. Readjusting how I do things, how I need to do things.

The hump-day of my vacation. We'll see what, if anything, the second half brings, but the first has been spent unwinding, decompressing. As far as any musical or blog ideas(including this one), I've felt some muffled stirrings, but pretty much a climate of recovery, of convalescence. The stirrings will be more audible to me as I gain recovery, I'm sure. Unless they've gone and sought out another host body...

It might just be that my entire vacation is spent unwinding. If so, then so be it. At least I'm 'un-wound' to the degree I was able to unwind. Sometimes it just takes awhile. I gotta say though, it has been beautiful outside every day I've been off. Still unwinding, but not unappreciative, as far as that goes.

The mind is its own place, and can make a Heaven out of Hell, and a Hell out of Heaven.

Still on vacation. Still unwinding. Five down, five to go.