Vacation Envy

Last week was a tremendously busy week at work and after work.  I had our championship softball game last Monday, which we unfortunately lost, but we kind of deserved to since we utterly choked.  After that I was in Iowa for work, training in clients on one of our software packages.  Each of those days were so long, but not as long as I thought they would be.  Actually, I’m kind of glad there were since there really isn’t too much to do in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Thursday night and Friday I was in Ames working at our Ames office before heading to Des Moines for an Iowa Cubs game.  Then the next morning my brother and I drove to the Wisconsin Dells to meet up with the rest of the family.  The vacation was a good time to relax and I really needed it.

While in the Dells we did the traditional mini golfing and browsing of the downtown shops.  The rest of the time we mostly spent just relaxing and hanging out by the bon fire at the campground, which was just fine by me since the previous week had been plenty hectic.

There’s one thing about vacationing, especially walking around downtown, that always seems to make me feel a little bittersweet—couples on vacation.  Any vacation spot you go you’re going to see couples vacationing and whenever I do I simultaneously think, “It’s so nice to see couples on vacation, having a wonderful time,” and “Dammit, why can’t that be me?”

You see in my 24 plus years of existence on this planet I have yet to take a vacation solely with a significant other.  I’ve always wanted to, and I’ve tried to make it work in the past, even taking on the burden of planning trips and/or offering to completely pay for them, but for some reason or another it never works out.

Sure, I’ve had significant others come on vacation with me and my family, but it’s never been just me and someone I was dating on vacation or taking a trip of any sort, and at times I feel like I’m really missing out on something.  When I see those couples, especially the ones my age or younger, I just want to be them.  I want to be carefree, smiling, and living the vacation life with someone close to me.

Not to knock my family or the friends I’ve vacationed with because I always enjoy it, I just wish that I could take a vacation with a significant other sometime.  I simply want someone to share those experiences with, in a capacity that my family or friends cannot fill.  I’m sure, or at least I’m hopeful, that I’ll eventually have countless vacations with a significant other or spouse that will fill my brain with so many wonderful memories, but that doesn’t help how I feel when I vacation right now.

To make things even more interesting, I have 30 some vacation days to use up in the next year or so, but I really don’t know how to spend them.  I don’t want to vacation alone.  My family will only get to take about a week off next year for vacation just like every year since they both have two jobs each.  Most of my co-workers are married and go on vacation with their families.  Many of my friends don’t have nearly as much vacation time to use or don’t have any at all.  Other friends are still in college.  

All I want is someone special to travel with to make those vacation days seem worthwhile.  I don’t want to end up spending them uselessly to just have days where I can be lazy.  I want them to be meaningful and I want to have someone to share my experiences with.  I suppose a little more than a year is a long time, so I can just keep hopeful that things will work out.  If not, at least I know I can be really, really lazy for about six weeks straight!