holiday

tomorrow i am leaving town for a quick little four day vacation with my sweetie. i am very much looking forward to the time away, with no chores to do, no errands to run, no obligations to uphold, and nothing but time to spend with my favorite person in the world. (given the nature of my mostly self-involved posts, i feel the need to let you know that my favorite person in the world is not me, but rather my loving, compassionate, and furry partner chris).

however, the anticipation that i feel thinking about our trip is tinged with something not-so-anticipatory. i think it is dread. a nagging voice in my head reminds me that holidays are just little escapes from the drudgery and sameness of every day life, a way to recharge one's batteries so that they can be sucked dry yet again by working, commuting, small talking, whatever, upon one's return to reality. the really insidious thing about vacations is that you feel so damn good after one of them that you lose the will to change your crappy job, or leave your cheating spouse, or make that important leap in your life that will remove whatever monkey is clinging to your back and slowly leeching out your soul. holidays are like those flashing memory erasers from men in black -- one push of a button and you've forgotten that you've seen an alien in your mirror.

why do we need to get away from our lives? are our lives really ours if we constantly seek ways to escape from them? how much of our lives are made up of merely a series of implicit consents rather than conscious choices? all the time we consent to bills, to mortgages, to restraint, to retirement funds, to lazy coworkers, to hateful in-laws, to not letting ourselves experience happiness and joy as often as we can.

rainbow always used to say 'don't let anyone steal your joy' and i realized with a start the other day that i had let someone steal my joy and it was me. i plan to use this holiday as an opportunity to take back my joy. i plan to bring it back with me, tucked safe inside a little box in my head. i plan to share my joy with chris, every day. i plan to take it out and turn it over in my hands when i am overwhelmed by choices and paths until it provides me with a map of where i want to go.