Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

A few weekends ago I traveled to Las Vegas for a friend's bachelorette party. I'll admit, I'd had some mixed emotions in the months leading up to the trip. On one hand, I was excited to spend time and celebrate with my friend for her upcoming wedding but I also had some feelings of apprehension. For starters, my previous experiences in Sin City haven't exactly been the best, but there were other reasons too. In the past I've struggled with finding a balance between wanting to maintain a healthy lifestyle and allowing myself to relax and indulge a little while on vacation and I wasn't sure how that would play out over the course of the trip. I'm also someone who likes having some time to myself each day to collect my thoughts and reflect, and I knew that I was going to be spending the weekend in close quarters with five other girls and that alone time would be scarce. Being a bachelorette party and having much of the weekend's festivities laid out in advance, there was also an air of anxiety about not having enough time to fit in my own plans (blogging, exercising, relaxing etc) - I've mentioned I'm a planner, right?

Perhaps the biggest thing on my mind was simply wondering about how the trip might go and what kind of feelings I'd be left with afterward. In the past, vacations have often left me feeling dissatisfied or let down. In fact it's something I mentioned to P in one of our very first sessions. I can remember being a child on family vacations and, rather than being able to simply enjoy myself, I often recall daydreaming out the car window about how things could or should be better - perhaps if I were some other person, in some other life?  

As long as I can remember I've had mixed feelings surrounding trips. On one hand I'm excited, anticipating all of the potential fun I'll have and yet any excitement that I do feel is always shadowed by a cloud of apprehension.  Even recently, as I've made leaps and bounds in my progress in therapy, I've still struggled to come to terms with the disparity between my idea of how I'd like a vacation to go and how it actually plays out (remember my trip to Philadelphia anyone?).  

Since I've been in therapy a little over a year now and am starting to recognize countless ways in which I've changed and grown, it's always nice to see the benefits of my hard work play out into real world situations. Yet, even as an opportunity arises to 'practice' these skills and I go forth with the hope that a situation will be different, I'm always a little wary.  


That's definitely the feeling I had heading into my last couple of vacations. I hoped to have a fun and relaxing time, the kind of experience I'd always thought possible but I still had a difficult time believing it could actually happen. I really hoped that all my time spent in therapy would help me to have a more enjoyable experience. Still, If my trip to Philadelphia was any indication, I worried I could be in for a world of disappointment. There's nothing worse than planning and and looking forward to a vacation or event and then feeling let down afterwards. 

At first glance my Vegas trip might look like it measured up pretty poorly: I lost my cell phone and had no choice but to replace it (at a cost), I didn't get a chance to exercise or blog as much as I'd wanted, I had virtually no control over the weekend's agenda and very little alone time. Yet somehow, despite all of the things that would have made me anxious or annoyed in the past, I had a great time. I spent quality time with old friends and new, became accepting of changes in plans and let go of some rigid expectations of myself. For example, rather than working out in the hotel gym every day I had one long invigorating run in the rain along the Vegas strip. I also managed to stay health conscious for most meals while taking part in the fun and indulging a little (red wine and haagen dazs ice cream!) In fact, looking back, I would venture to say that the trip was just about perfect.

Still, one good vacation does not a pattern make. (I mean, there can always be a fluke right?) I knew I had to give it another go to prove to myself that things had changed. Enter vacation number two: this past weekend I met up with my two best friends in Santa Barbara for our annual girls' trip. Again, I was of course excited to catch up and relax with my best friends but I was also leery of a let-down. 

The verdict? I had an amazing time. Sure things didn't always go according to plan (our hotel room was quite a bit different than depicted online, I experienced some wi-fi issues that delayed some of my blog posts, I had to rearrange my running schedule to make time for meeting up with some other friends) but none of that really got to me the way it likely would have in the past. When I did notice some of the old issues popping up at times (which is inevitable) I found that I was much better equipped to handle them. A large part of that probably comes from just having awareness of the situation and having practiced techniques I've learned in therapy but I'm starting to discover that I now also have an underlying sense of enjoyment that wasn't there before. I no longer rely on little things to make or break a trip because I'm just more happy and content in general.

I'm really developing a newfound sense of comfortability and security in my own skin, and it feels really good. I feel like I'm finally starting to live the life that before I would only dream about. It's so nice to have hopes for how the future will go and for once not feel disappointed with the outcome. I realize that nothing has drastically changed about these vacations or situations and that it's all in my attitude and outlook. It's kind of like my eyes are open now where before they were closed. And I couldn't be more thrilled about that. Because for once, instead of staring out the window and wishing I were in some other situation, or living someone else's life, I feel so incredibly happy and grateful to be experiencing my own. 

Having these two vacations under my belt, I realize that my Philadelphia trip wasn't likely the best gauge of my progress in therapy because it truly was a different beast entirely. I had purchased my blog conference ticket and booked my flight a mere 3 weeks before the event, I was in unfamiliar territory, rooming with strangers and sharing a lot of myself and my blog (things I wasn't even totally sure of yet) with others. I had struck out on a whim to follow a newfound passion and align myself with people, some of whom had been blogging for years. And there I was, a relative newbie in an arena of blogging superstars. Of course I was feeling stressed, anxious and out of my element. It's only natural - it was a gutsy move. And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

-k