(I started writing this post on vacation, back in August, but I just now got around to finishing it.  May it remind you of warmer and younger days.)

 12:47 P.M.-Vacation- Day 6

   I’m in the shower, zoned out.  Memories lead to memories lead to more memories and Bam!  This flood of emotion hits me smack in the face.  I dig deeper into my thoughts and I suddenly realize what vacation really is.  I always thought vacation was just a good time, a chance to do fun things, and go to different, exciting places; and vacation is all of those things, but it can be so much more.

   My mind wandered off, like it always does in the shower, and I remembered a few days back, when I took my daughter out into the ocean for the first time.  We went out into the crystal clear, emerald water until it came up to my chest.  The look on her face was so beautiful.  She was exploring a new frontier with her Daddy, and I with her.  She has no idea that the water is as deep as three of her.  She just knows that her Daddy has her, and she is experiencing a whole new world.  While amazed and in awe of the moment, I am scared at the same time.  What marine life is lurking around us?  We both have on sunscreen which makes her very slippery in my arms, and she’s squirming away, trying to do this her way, what if she slipped?  But, I know, I’ve got her.

   (Back to the shower)   So, the memory of my daughter’s and my amazing ocean experience, triggered deeper memories, from long ago.  My Dad hanging out in the ocean, neck deep, holding onto me, bouncing through the waves.  Or my mother, lying on a float, letting me hang onto the side.  That’s when it hits me, I am them now!  I’m playing with my daughter out in the ocean.  But if I am them, then who have my parents become?  They’re not my grandparents!  My grandparents were always old to me, (sorry Granny, if you happen to be surfing the web and read this, I don’t mean ‘old’ in a bad way.).  I think we have this chronological, mental snapshot of our parents, and they never really age.  Sure we see them age physically, but they are always that ‘person’ that we decided they were, some time long ago.  I think we do the same thing with our perception of ourselves.  I know how old I really am, but that is not the age I think I am.

   This revelation in the shower threw a lot at me at one time.  Any ‘1^st’ moment shared with my daughter is at least a 4.0 on the emotional Richter scale.  Realizing that I have taken my parents’ place and they are taking the place of my grandparents is a 7!   That’s over thirty years!  Think about what has happened in thirty years!  I am in my thirties, (barely on the downhill side, thank you), so that is basically my entire lifetime!  If you look at it from my parent’s point of view, thirty years puts them in a very different place.  My thoughts drift to what these changes mean:  Many of them are not good.

   So, all of these thoughts and emotions swirled together and opened up my eyes, (not to mention dampened them).  This life is ZOOMING by!   In our everyday lives we’re always running back and forth, fighting to keep our heads above water:  Working, paying bills, not paying bills, going to daycare, going to the doctor, buy clothes, use clothes, wash clothes, put away clothes, buy more clothes to replace old clothes…

   You need to take a Vacation.  You have to give your mind the time to pull away from it all and slowly wind down until you finally get to the point where you can see things for what they really are. 

Go out into the water. 

Keep your head above water. 

Keep her head above water.

Help people that are struggling to keep their heads above water. 

But most of all, be glad you get the chance to swim.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm and is filed under MonkeySpeak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.