Making Vacation Out of the In-Between

It's been just over five months. I still half expect to walk into his office and find Dad there at his desk, working at his computer, working on some paperwork, or even taking a break and watching a western. He loved films. I do as well. We're similar like that, I suppose. No matter how I try to make sense of it all, he's gone, and I truly miss him.

Dad always taught us lessons. He spoke often of things we should and shouldn't do. Things like don't put it off till tomorrow, you don't know what will happen, you may get busy and you won't get to finish that task. There's another lesson his passing is teaching me now. Stopping to smell the roses, so to speak.

Right now Lyn and I live across two spaces, Guam and Daly City. Both places pull at us, the Bread Basket here, Guam Bakery there. Travel between the two isn't a special occasion, it's just what our life looks like right now, and it's going to keep looking like that for a while. So when a trip is already happening, I see no reason not to add what I call a mini vacay, a chance to blow off steam, even if only for a little bit.

In June we were flying back to Guam, and instead of just booking the straight route, I decided to turn it into a mini vacation. A few days in Manila, then a few more in Cebu, before finally heading home. It was the longest version of this we've done. Cooler air up in Baguio during the Manila stretch, slower mornings, days that had nowhere in particular to be. Nothing about it was extravagant. It was just time, actually spent, instead of burned getting from one job site to the next.

Coming up, we're doing it again, an even shorter one. Two and a half days in Manila, traveling Guam to Daly City, an errand here and there, but we've added an executive physical for both of us, because why not, and caring for yourself is likely necessary for this sort of life we live. We've planned a couple of destressing moments for ourselves as well. A spa day, café time, a meal someplace new, meeting up with friends and family. A time for each of us, but also a time for us to grow as a couple.

Part of this is learned not just from Dad, but from the Marine Corps too. Any veteran will tell you the same thing. When you're in the field, you sleep when you can, because you don't know when the time for it will come around again. The ideal moment for rest doesn't happen on your own schedule. I think back to that lesson even more now that I'm older. It's not really about sleep anymore, it's about rest, and about time with my wife, with Lyn. In the everyday of our lives, a break won't always announce itself. So you take it when it presents itself, even if it's wedged between work and whatever comes next.

I'm sure others have figured this out too. I think most people stretched thin the way we are, split between two households, two places, two jobs, with too many obligations to count, could live this way as well. The question of when's our next vacation doesn't have to be its own thing. It can just be something you add in between one job and the next.

I think Dad would've understood this style, this kind of life and movement we've adopted. He took his breaks later in life, but through most of his working years it was work, always. Still, there were small moments he carved out as his own, taking in a film when he felt like it. Maybe that's the lesson. Just showing up in a different way.