By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
In the interest of full disclosure, I am writing this a week early. In the interest of extra transparency in said disclosure, I haven’t the foggiest idea what I am about to write about. The reason that I am writing early is because, at the time that this is published, I will be in my favorite place on this earth, The Great Smoky Mountains. So, I am writing now in an attempt to make sure all my proverbial ducks are neatly in a row before heading off on vacation. Also, avoiding having to sit with a laptop in my lap whilst I am trying to enjoy my trip is a pretty good reason too.
Vacations are funny things. I cannot tell you how many times I have gone on vacation and come back home more weary than I left because I tried to pack some of every recreational thing an area has to offer into a very short amount of time. Some people will argue that such behavior is ridiculous. You should just relax, they say. You should take it easy, they say.
Well, yes.
But the thing is, I am at a place that I love with every fiber of my being, so to ask me to just sit in one spot and not do everything I can to soak up all there is to revel in the experience is, well, honestly, a pretty big ask. Now, don’t get me wrong, I could very easily sit down in a picturesque spot in Cade’s Cove and just look until my eyes hurt. It is that magnificent and that entrancing that I could easily do that. But there are so many more sights to see, so many more experiences to have.
Basically, that’s asking someone at their absolute favorite buffet in the world to stay only at the salad bar and never travel to the main dishes or desserts. It may be a great salad, and I can most certainly enjoy it, but do not let me know that the rest of all that deliciousness is there and tell me I shouldn’t try to enjoy as much of it as I can.
I do promise to put in as much effort as I can not to wedge too much into the short time I am there. I think in recent years I may have done just that, and since time flies when one is having fun, putting so much into a few days that are already going so quickly is not particularly wise. You go on vacation to take a break from your standard routine and make memories.
I am preaching to myself here, but it is probably not especially easy to make memories that can really be recalled and enjoyed if you’ve stuffed your memory banks so full that it’s like one of those closets that has collected far too much over the course of the years. When you open it, that one thing you really wanted may be in there, but when you try to get it, you’re going to get bombarded by a lot of junk. And that ruins the moment of being able to enjoy what you had sought in the first place.
I do not want the memories I am making with my family to be full of too much stuff and not enough good. I want to focus on quality, not quantity, she said, talking to herself in a stern tone. So, I suppose the goal for this trip is to be selective and intentional.
We have already set in stone a few things that we know we want to do. And even though there is a large part of me that feels a sense of concern looking at these days and thinking that there seems to be not a great deal penciled into those boxes on the calendar, I am working very hard to fight that. I know we can easily just find things we enjoy. I would love to facilitate us stumbling upon some gem that we’ve missed, even though we’ve made this trip so many times before.
I’ve just got to remember to fight the urge to fill the mining pan with all the gravel I can buy while looking for that hidden gem.
Speaking of, maybe we could fit in some mining. We love pretty rocks, so that’s always fun.
Hm.
Who knew that being intentional and selective would be such hard work?
I might need a vacation after this.
