Four R's and A Weekend Away

We all need breaks -- vacations for rejuvenation and inspiration -- to refresh our minds, spirits and bodies. Employers are legally mandated to give their employees two-weeks of vacation in the US. Other countries are afforded even better luck. Full time mothers may be the only group of working class citizens who do not receive vacation time. Heck, we don’t even get sick time, or daily “breaks,” or pay or compensation, for that matter, other than those laughs and smiles that light up our days and keep us working our very hardest. As full-time mothers, we are our own bosses and so we must demand vacation time for ourselves, if we are ever to be granted such.

I am not good at taking “time off.” I never have been. My husband is not any better – he regularly accrues 3 months of vacation time only to be paid out at ½ salary because he can’t find the time to actually take a break. This weekend we used 3 days of saved up vacation time and man, was it needed. We were both so deeply immersed in the busy-ness of everyday life that we didn’t even realize how badly we needed a little break.

A friend said recently, “It is important to date your husband." Those words resonated within me. Monotony can set it especially when you have been together for 9 years as have we and are in the middle of raising three little ones. Many days are simply spent trying to keep up. I feel lucky to say that our marriage is thriving and wonderful and we haven’t personally felt those effects of monotony. Perhaps we have been saved by the constant changes of births and family additions and kids keeping us young in spirit. However, we do still need to “date each other.”

Albuquerque, NM. I won't date us but rather let you guess the year.
Tip: it was back in our "dating years."

And so this weekend offered the perfect opportunity with my husband's childhood friend getting married in Durango, Colorado. Initially he planned to go alone, with the trip being too complicated and remote to drag three kids along for the ride. A phone conversation with my father and my mother’s ensuing willingness to babysit for the weekend convinced me to take 3 days off from full time Mama duties and enjoy a little alone time with my first love.

The happy couple whom we celebrated this weekend,
pictured at Billy Goat's in Chicago lucky 7 years ago.

Thursday night we boarded a plane to Albuquerque, stayed at his family’s home before making the drive up to Durango and had a weekend with the perfect combination of four R’s:

1.                    Rest— Remembering what sleeping in until 7am felt like and waking up on your own terms rather than a child climbing atop your head, peeling back your eyes saying “Mama, it’s morning time!” despite any sign of sunlight.

Early-morning baby holding.
Just one pic of many, many moments over the years.

2.                    Running – Slow, easy, pleasurable recovery running through Fall foliage and quiet mountainous trails with Alan and an awesome old college friend and fellow cross country teammate, Katie, who just so happens to now be a tenure-track professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango. It’s a small world. By coincidence she just happened to qualify for Boston 2016 in the St. George Marathon in Utah 2 weeks before my BQ marathon. We were both recovering and running together post-marathon felt glorious.

3.                    Reunion – Rekindling old friendships. Alan and I are introverts by nature and not the best at keeping in touch. With that combination, years regularly pass with no contact or effort on our part to maintain friendships, despite the love and nostalgia we have for these people we consider members of our second-families. This weekend afforded us the opportunity to rehash old memories and replay the good ol’ days whether it be over beer at a friend’s wedding or on the Colorado Trail testing our legs and lungs. To each of the friends we were blessed to have spent time with this weekend – Thank you! It meant a lot to us and I sincerely hope we don’t see as many years pass before we reunite again.

We were so lucky to see this little girl
(pictured here as the only child at our wedding)
who is not so little anymore!

           4. Reflection – It can become so easy to get sucked into our own little lives that we fail to take the time to reflect and plan; to think ahead and beyond. The weekend away afforded me hours of writing, reflection and planning for bigger and exciting things ahead. More to come soon, but I am definitely feeling inspired, enlivened and energized to tackle big new exciting projects while simultaneously giving back to this beautiful world!

As we returned home and settle back into our everyday lives, the challenge now is to try to keep this spirit alive and find the time regularly for reflection and mandated breaks. Advice and tips are welcome! 

How do you observe vacation time or do you? Do you remember to date your husband or wife? Do you carve out time for yourself for reflection, rest and reunion? I won’t ask about balancing running because luckily I have that figured out by now – the rest, not so much.