On bitchy vacation tweets

[prog]

I posted a tweet yesterday that, after a couple of hours, I came to regret for its negativity, so I took it down. It was basically: "This vacation is about 1.5 days too long." Before I did remove it, dianamp04 quite sensibly left a Facebook comment to the tune of "Oh no, a vacation! My heart is breaking for you." I had it coming, but I feel the need to say a few words (ha ha) in my defense.

Two reasons why my vacations need to be either shorter or lower-key than this one:

(0) I HAD A GREAT TIME OK. Nobody seems to believe me, especially when I pronounce it in all caps. But it is true anyway. Future timestream world-branches where I get around to upgrading my Flickr account will see me uploading some nice pictures.

(1) Introversion. classicaljunkie gets a free pass, but being in the presence of any other person on this green earth counts against my being-around-other-people bettery. I need frequent and long bouts of alone-time to recharge. Collapsing in hotel rooms after a day of itinerary-following, then getting up early the next morning in order to continue the itinerary: does not work. After a couple of days of this I am completely and visibly wrung out, and well-meaning people keep asking me if everything is OK. (See point 0.)

(2) Attention-miserliness. Lately, especially since getting back on the GTD horse, I've come to put a lot more value upon my attention, treating it as a highly precious and finite resource. A major reason I love working for myself is that I am in complete control over what things I spend my attention on. When I'm touring under someone else's power and schedule, I lose control over this. It can be fun and relaxing to let it go for a little while, but eventually I end up only feeling frustrated and anxious about it.

Why, yes, I can see you making the "world's smallest violin" gesture from here. Thanks. My point is that vacations are good for me but I have to put better definition on their size and scope in the future, or I'll get sufficiently stressed from them that I'll make bitchy twoots that I'll then bitchily delete two hours later. That's all.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

So, this makes perfect sense to me, including the bits where people don't understand and get all grumpy when you try to explain.

Sometimes it's helpful to have a vacation-vacation, where you get away from wherever it is that you've got (ostensibly to get away from it all) and either do some work or have some alone time or otherwise ingest what you want. Then you can go back and have more fun on the remainder of your vacation.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I totally get this. The first one's flexible up to a point, for me. (Singing in choirs recharges the being-around-other-people battery. Going out for drinks with a group of my fellow singers after choir practice uses up the battery.)

The second one? Definitely not flexible. My mental desktop is finite. A vacation that fills up the desktop every day and doesn't give me a chance to process what's on there and clear the desktop, is a vacation that's lasted too long.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

a vacation would bore me to tears. couldn't do it.

[dictator555.livejournal.com]

I also get this, especially item 1. Vacations with other people can be very, very stressful simply because you can't get enough alone time and when you're like, "I'm going for a walk by myself" everyone goes, "I'll come, too!" This item is exacerbated when you're someone else's house guest, as I've come to realize.

I find being up-front about it helps. The long week we spent last summer in the Adirondacks with Nate's parents is a good example of this. One days they were like "Now let's go kayak all day across this giant lake" and I said "You guys go and I'll stay here and read this book" and they were like "What? Alone? WTF?" And I was like "I need alone time, dudes." And then it was all good. The end. It's bedtime. I hope that cat is OK.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Collapsing in hotel rooms after a day of itinerary-following, then getting up early the next morning in order to continue the itinerary: does not work.

Vacations are supposed to be relaxing. That sounds like the opposite of relaxing! Any vacation where I can't sleep late is Not A Vacation.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I've had a few vacations over the past several years where I've been almost entirely responsible for my own time. Even when they've involved groups, things were loose enough that there was no expectation of coordinating plans with other people, although sometimes I did. What I found was that I could do a very high volume of things, and because I was always only doing things that I chose to do, it never got to be too much. Part of that was the ability to change plans freely, dropping and adding things as the mood struck me. Vacations with other people involve spending time planning, and the plans turn into commitments, and the whole thing bogs down.

[mr-choronzon.livejournal.com]

This is all serious, it's true. So many people don't actually know how to have the best vacation. It's more than just going somewhere and blowing all your time seeing sights or whatever.

Regarding point #1, when Kristen and I spent two weeks in SF, we made sure to be under-scheduled and go out exploring individually whenever the mood struck.

Also we made sure to go climbing a few times during the trip. Exercise and a homey centering activity is good. Sort of a vacation from the vacation.

I vastly prefer pretending to live somewhere on vacation to being a tourist. Tourism is tiring! Living somewhere is fun.