You All Need to Go On a Vacation
There are many lessons that getting the hell outta Dodge for a week provide. I'm certain I'll be parsing them out over the next few weeks but as I sit here on the terrace of our resort room 2,104 miles away from home, the most important one is that distance from your specific routine offers perspective on your world.
And perspective changes attitude.
The Trump presidency is vexing to say the least. Spending time on the beach, effectively avoiding all of the hype and hysteria has done me good. We on the Left are mortified. We are horrified. We are embarrassed. Some have amped up their own personal fear of persecution to record highs. But that's what they are. Highs. Like a drug we can't do without, the panic feels right and good and while we may not want to admit it, is intoxicating. At least better than accepting that we lost the fight for government epically.
Moral outrage feels better than defeat so we overindulge in it. Overindulgence of fabricated highs is what social media is for, so why not? Most of our freaking out is the spastic and unfocused fear of the unknown - of rights we *might* lose, of wars we *might* get drawn into, of the Idiots Gallery in D.C. accidentally hitting the wrong button on the microwave and turning the planet into a burning husk.
The Trumps of the world are going to win sometimes. Senseless horror is what Life on the Planet promises us. Fixation on all the horrors on the menu without ordering a drink is a road to insanity and misery.
Trust me on this: you all need to go on a vacation.
I'm drinking a "Nutwhacker" which is like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in a frozen booze drink. This drink erases any memory of The DONALD, I promise...
It doesn't have to be to the Virgin Islands (although I highly recommend them) but it has to be away from your routine. Breaking out of your day to day grind and finding that your only immediate concern is making sure your Irish ass doesn't get sunburned too much and where you're going to eat in the afternoon is goddamned liberating. Save up a few bucks and get a hotel room in New Buffalo but get out of town.
And before you jump all over my ass about privilege and not being able to afford a vacation, stop and question what you value and how hard it is to save a few hundred dollars to do this vacation thing. Dana and I didn't just have the money to fly to the Virgin Islands. We saved the cash a bit at a time for the last year to do this thing we value. We saved and planned because we value time away. So climb off the Victimization Bandwagon (for at least a little while because they'll miss you if you're gone too long), save some money and go. Remember that the Weber Inn in Ann Arnor has a bitching pool, hot tub, dry sauna and great hand soap.
Once there and after a day of decompression, you start to see how pointless so much of your melodramatic reactions are. You start to see where your boundaries need to be. You might re-block a toxic asshole again (for good) because as you expand above and away from your life, you see that she is nothing at all in the Grand Scheme. You might see that the Trumpian debacle is going to be a massive shitshow but you being miserable and strident contributes nothing at all to the solutions required.
You might decide to no longer work with people who work with your personal Trump and find that that's okay. You might also start to see the forest for the trees and comprehend the best path to resisting the Trump in D.C. is rooted in the election in 2018 when all 435 Congessional seats are up for grabs rather than all of us wringing our tear-stained paws and howling at the moon.
For the love of all that is holy and good, please take a fucking vacation.
