Got to Get Away

In the past month I've been gone, that is, out of town, for total of about a week and a half.

One of my staff asked me if I had enjoyed my vacation - "Vacation? That was work," I said in a tone that I'm pretty sure was a whole lot more defensive than I meant for it to be.

"Well," he said, "it was a vacation from here."

True enough, I supposed, but it was not vacation.

A continuing education event and our annual conference - not the stuff of "holiday."

And while I've "been away" doing work related things, there is a deeper, hidden truth - if I don't "get away," and soon, I'm going to go nuts.

I've got to get away, with my family, from the expectations and obligations of our lives here, if only for a short time. As complicated as our lives are when here (and by complicated, I don't mean bad - just complicated), to be anywhere else together gives us the opportunity to connect differently.

And that's the thing, isn't it? With every relationship - partner, friend, child - there is an essential need to make new and different connections to foster vitality. Otherwise, we merely become the roles we play in relationship and not live in the intimacy of being in relationship.

So, I've got to hit the road - got to get to the beach, the place where the best medicine for my soul comes. I've got to fish off the dock behind the cottage. I've got to go tubing with the boys, spend a day at the Big Kahuna and maybe, just maybe - have a date with my wife.

Just under two weeks before we hit the road, squeezed by the anticipation of going and the load of work to be accomplished before leaving - I'm in that tumultuous place that happens to any of us living in the "almost, but not yet."

There's also the price to be paid for going at all. That price exacted upon return. You know how that goes - ever said "I need a vacation from my vacation" when you get back and try to catch up?

But some prices are worth paying - and this is one of them.

In the meantime - breathe, Johnny, breathe - be patient - time is coming.