Back to Work Blues

Despite my best laid plans, I will not be able to post vacation pictures at this time - was that a collective sigh of relief I just heard?

For some reason, my camera and my computer are presently not speaking to one another. Perhaps they will patch things up or I will be able to perform an end around and get my pictures downloaded soon.

As I thought about posting those pictures, I thought - there is just not much difference between having a blog these days and having guests into your living room a couple decades ago. Do you remember the folks that would invite you over for dinner and then would drag out the slide projector. And you had to look at pictures of very pasty people in very wildly colored bathing suits - donning scuba gear and horsey-floats, all drenched and grinning from ear to ear. It was always somehow rewarding to see those same people in later slides just as drenched but this time they were fully clothed to avoid further exposure to the sun, and just past their beet red cheeks you could see a painfully forced smile.

Well the beauty of seeing vacation slides on a blog is that you can leave the site at any point without offending anyone. Perhaps you will have the opportunity to avoid my vacation pictures soon.

Today is the last day of my vacation and I have begun to look mournfully toward the week ahead. On our recent trip, I noticed people from time to time, talking on their cell phones or texting while sitting beside the pool. Or perhaps they would be standing along some sidewalk to obtain a better cell reception - talking away. Now some were talking to friends or family but at least a few of them were talking to someone at work. 'Just had to check on this or that or to get up to speed on some upcoming project... that's not me.

I fairly like my job. Sometimes I am really excited about it. I gain a certain amount of satisfaction from the feeling that my work is meaningful.

But when I go on vacation - I am outta' there - in other words, I pretty much forget everything that's going on. Now this normally means that I am in for a rude awakening upon my return and I usually have some difficult days of readjusting.

On some occasions when I have taken time off but stayed in close communication with work, my transition back to work has been much smoother; but I don't think my vacation has served it's proper purpose.

These past few days, I have been completely removed from work and any thoughts in that area, so Monday morning hangs ominously over my head.

But you know what? It's worth it.

I have spent a number of days doing worthwhile stuff with the three people in the entire world that I would most rather do worthwhile stuff with - my family.

In fact they are also the three people I would choose first on my list of people to do absolutely nothing with.

Jesus told His disciples to "come apart" for awhile. That's what vacations are - just coming apart for a time and we need that. I think it was Charles Swindoll who called this "coming apart so you don't fall apart".

So vacations are good. And I, for one, am in favor of more of them....

...perhaps starting tomorrow.