There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. — Mary Wilson Little
There is nothing like taking a vacation in the midst of unemployment.
Honestly, your self-esteem is low. You have nothing to work toward. Your parents are always on your case for forgetting to start the dryer (seriously, Mom, it’s not like I have a grudge against dry clothes; it’s just difficult to remember to push the button).
So if you really look at it from my perspective, you can see I practically deserved to go down and visit my friends in Santa Clara.
Well, whether or not I deserved it, I did.
And while I spent that week with them, we had great stories to share.
Them loving the work at their jobs. Me totaling my car in June. Them partying on the weekends with friends. Me writing in my diary, alone, in the basement. Them taking trips to Tahoe and Las Vegas. Me remembering to put on deodorant in the morning.
While there, though, I finally got the chance to do everything that I wasn’t doing here.
…actually, I pretty much just sat on the couch, watched television, and drank beer with greater frequency–mostly the same thing I do in Portland, but this time it wasn’t with people who doubled my age.
Interestingly, the number one question my friends asked me—a smirk always poorly disguised on their lips—was, So run me through one of your typical days.
I have never written such grand, fictional stories as I told them.
My days? Oh, well, you know, they’re pretty packed. Waking up at five in the morning to run. Going to writer’s conferences and events to promote my novel. Becoming a bad ass warrior from all my MMA training. You know, the usual.
However, if we analyzed those remarks in reverse order, the truth would be that I’m not becoming a bad ass fighter, I’m getting my ass badly kicked by fighters (I had my contact punched out of my eye three times now); I’ve been to one writer’s conference one year ago and my novel isn’t even in its final draft; and that whole waking up early and running thing, yeah, that just plain doesn’t exist.
But even though I didn’t do anything too crazy while there, I still had an incredible time. As my father always tells me, You will never regret spending too much time with the people you love. So even though this trip may not have been the most practical, getting to see some of my best friends meant the world to me.
Along with the looks on their faces when I told them I got an Aston Martin for Christmas.
Yeah, you caught me. That’s another “grand story.”
Happily,
jdt