One of the sweetest words in a workin' mans vocabulary is vacation. It is so awesome to get away. So I imagine. I haven't had one in I think 5 years. Maybe 4. I guess It's been too long if I can't remember. I haven't had a PAID vacation in 15 years! Oh the joy's of a small business owner.... . Let's hope for next year. Maybe I should plan rather than hope but that sounds kind of adultish. My wife can only hope...
I think there are two kinds of vacations: the restful kind and the play kind. The restful would be like a 2 week cruise up the Alaskan coast and the playful the Disney thing. One you come back recharged and the other you come back needing another week off. I combine the two. When we DO go on vacation we go to Maine to visit Terri's family. What a wonderful people and a slow, restful place but there is so much to do and see and I just can't get enough. I get up at 5:00 a.m. and hit the ground running, just doin' stuff. It's so dumb to get up that early especially on vacation but I feel like I don't want to miss a minute of what awaits me. And I milk every sweet moment of the day until I drop into bed, dead tired at midnight. 2 weeks of that and who wouldn't be worn out.
I got bad news from my mom a few days back. Said my cousin had died suddenly, probably a brain aneurysm. He was only 55. There was a day when I thought 55 was pretty old but now, yikes! I turned 47 a few days back and 55 doesn't seem that far off. Way too young to die. I wonder what he missed? I mean, we all have things we'd like to do in life, things we'd like to experience before taking the eternal dirt nap. Did he do all he had planned? Guess most of us don't get to do ALL we imagine but I sure would like to live long enough to give it a try.
I said I'm 47 now and I think I'm having this mid life crisis thing. Maybe not the full blown crisis. I haven't bought the convertible yet. Or run off with the milk man. Don't ask don't tell. I'm just not....satisfied. With what I can't put a finger on. Life feels good but not as good as it should have been. I am blessed with so much but I feel like one of those homeless guys pushing an old shopping cart down the street overflowing with stuff. Yeah, you've got stuff but dude, your pushing a shopping cart down the street. To where? To what end? To get more things in the cart?
Sometimes I feel alone and ashamed because I sit in church staring at the balding, graying heads of my peers and think they've got it together and wished I'd have listened to my elders when they said to make a 10 year, 20 year, 40 year plan for your life. Think about retirement. Think about your wife and kids. The grand kids. Your death. Your legacy. Don't just let life happen. Don't get to it tomorrow. Those tomorrows disappear like smoke. So I sit here and watch those balding pates nodding, some to the preachers words, some as they sleep through the words and I wonder. Are they happy with where they're at in life or they like me and are a little sad, knowing that life could have been....better. I do have a good life, only maybe not as good a one as I should have had. Never too late though.
Now I find myself as one of these old (er) men who want to say to the young "make a plan, find out what's important and build your life around it. Serve those around you. Your wife. Your kids. Make the time. Take those playful vacations and those slow peaceful ones. Make sure to every day love them. Serve and love your neighbor. Your sisters and brothers. Go on those mission trips. Make plans. And do them. Take care of your body, exercise and eat your veggies, you have to last a long time. And it does seem like a long time when you're 25 but in a very few days you'll be 47 and saying where did it go?" Yeah. That's what I want to say. Life is a vapor and if we aren't careful we'll have spent it ignorant busyness serving a cunning viper instead of purposely loving voluminous God. Sorry. That last part sounded kinda preachery. You get the idea.
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