All of that travel caused three things to happen before and after we left.
1) In advance of our trip, I worked like a maniac to get writing for clients, various errands (like doctor's appointments for both myself and Desmond) and other To Do items checked off of my list. We threw the Disney excursion together at the very last minute and I knew it wasn't going to happen again for a while, so I wanted absolutely nothing on my plate or hanging over my head while we were there. This is my (admittedly not totally great) excuse for not blogging in the days leading up to our departure for Arizona.
2) The time off was the best. Seriously, it couldn't have been any better. I will definitely be writing about everything we did very soon. But part of the reason I couldn't bring myself to sit down and crank out any posts over the past three weekdays I've been home is because I'd already been sitting so much during the trip. As in, twelve hours crammed in the back seat of our tiny Volt this past weekend going to and from Michigan, three hours on the flight to Arizona, five hours on the return flight from L.A., all of the time in the car getting to and from airports, and so on. The last thing I wanted to do was sit after we got home. I even chose to do hours and hours of laundry over booting up my laptop, if that tells you something.3) Since we returned, I've been in a complete and total funk. Hence the title of this post. Now, this kind of post-vacation depression almost always happens when I get back from a great trip. So I was expecting it to some degree. But this time it seems worse. Perhaps it was because we were at The Happiest Place on Earth™, so being back in the dismal not-really-spring-yet Chicago weather was an ever bigger letdown then it would've been coming back from anywhere else.
Maybe it's because we had such an extraordinary time. Maybe it's because real life was pretty much on hold while we were away. Maybe it's because I had the first true, honest-to-god-no-work-AT-ALL vacation since 2008 and I really, really needed it. Maybe it's because when I got back, I could no longer ignore a few major professional and personal situations that have me really bummed out and in denial. Maybe it's because even though there are many things we're doing over the next few months that I'm excited about, we don't have any other vacations planned. (Remember how I always need something big to look forward to?)So what did I do? We got back late Wednesday night, and on Thursday I had the aforementioned Day Of Laundry. I went through mail, cleaned our place, and did everything I could to avoid opening my laptop. I had every intention to get back to work on Friday.
But then Friday morning hit, and I still couldn't bring myself to accept reality. By this point I did have to do some client work, but in my head I guess I felt like if I didn't go back to my usual routine of doing a personal blog post in the morning then I wasn't really back back. Plus, I had to get things ready to leave again on Saturday morning, I wanted to go to the gym, we didn't have any food at home so I took that as an opportunity to go out to eat, et cetera, et cetera. I would totally be rarin' to go again on Monday. For sure. Because, I mean, it would be Monday and that's a perfect day to start fresh again.
So we went to Michigan and back over the weekend, and then on Sunday night in my head I was like, "OK, I'm going to watch The Walking Dead finale and then that will also represent the finale of these past few weeks of goofing off and then tomorrow I am totally going to get serious again."Except that yesterday came and I was even more down in the dumps than before. I did a bunch of client work, but still couldn't bring myself to log in to Blogger. By the time it hit 3 p.m. I couldn't sit still anymore. It was halfway decent out, so I justified a long walk around my neighborhood.
I was about 30 minutes into that brisk walk when the tears started coming. Was it because I finally had to accept that play time was over? Was it me coming to terms with the crappy work and personal stuff that's going on? Was it the fact that "Run" by Collective Soul came on my Spotify mix? Who knows, but I decided I was just going to let myself have a pity party right there in the middle of Lincoln Park and be done with it. I turned down a residential side street and had a good cry and felt a million times better.
Right or wrong, I am the kind of person who doesn't have much patience for anyone who's acting all "poor me" when they don't have something serious to be down about. I am especially hard on myself whenever I feel blue because I know I have a great life and so many things to be thankful for. I mean, being sad that you're back from Disneyland is like THE number one #FirstWorldProblem, am I right? (There truly is more to it than that, but you get my point.) But a wise friend told me yesterday that I was human, I am being faced with real challenges (the work and personal ones I alluded to, not the post-Disneyland-blues, obviously) and that I was allowed to feel the way I was feeling. And that helped. So did the cry during my walk. So did watching Better Call Saul last night. So is the promise of seeing something mega-silly like Furious 7 tonight. The dreary weather today is NOT helping (hence the SAD lamp is cranking as I write this), but warmer temperatures are ahead, and so is a brighter outlook on my part. "Pity, Party of One" has had its time, but now I need to smack myself upside the head and start acting like an adult again.
And what could be MORE adult than this: actually looking forward to spending the majority of the day tomorrow pulling together everything needed to complete our 2014 taxes. Yes, I am one of those dorks who enjoys tax season. It's no Disneyland, but it'll have to do.
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