A week ago today, I started my vacation. A trip to Cape Breton to drive the Cabot Trail for the first five days, followed by another six days of downtime at home to read, have fun, eat merrily and just enjoy life. As my previous blog post pointed out, things did not start off as intended. Turns out neither did the rest of the vacation.

It would seem that our deductive skills were not up to par. Based on the evidence on hand, we had determined that my wife had gotten food poisoning, which had resulted in the abbreviated nature of our Cape Breton voyage. It would seem that was an incorrect assumption on our part, as I experienced the same malaise some 48-hours later. So rather than have had food poisoning, we both ended up with some sort of gastrointestinal virus. Isabelle got hit on Friday morning and was ill throughout the next couple of days. I got hit on Sunday evening. While she’s still on the mend, energy and stamina-wise, I bounced back a bit faster. Granted, I did sleep some 14-15 hours per day on Sunday and Monday, but things ran their course rather quickly.

Still, it made for a disheartening week of vacation.

Although I was feeling nauseous on Sunday and Monday, the fact that I did nothing but lay in bed and sleep so much made the days seem very long. I would look at the clock and be amazed that it was only 10AM, thinking it must be nigh on 5 or 6PM. This was nice as I kept thinking “at least I’ll still have X many days of vacation after I feel better.”

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Hello Friday!

While I was feeling better, it still took a few days for my energy levels to return to my usual rambunctious self. Isabelle, on the other hand, is still on that upswing. We didn’t do much for the rest of the week. We went for a walk one morning, and that resulted in her needing to take a 3-hour nap. We went for a drive to visit our favourite new age/spirituality shop, and another hour’s nap afterwards. Today, we managed to run errands this morning, and grab a bite for lunch at Café Archibald.

We watched a lot of sitcoms (I mean…A LOT). We rested. We didn’t do much else. I read a bit, but didn’t really have the gumption to do that until Wednesday. I had planned out a few Marvel movies that I had intended to watch, but never really got around to doing that either. It’s just been one of those weeks. Nothing at all went as planned. But as I’ve often quoted in the past:

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Woody Allen

Now, I look ahead and see the work week coming along quickly. Even though it will be a short week (with Thanksgiving being on Monday, and my taking Friday afternoon off to go see Trevor Noah in Halifax), I am very much not anxiously awaiting Tuesday morning’s return to work. I’ll take solace in the fact that my body has had time to rest, even if it wasn’t how I had intended to do so.

So now, on this Friday afternoon, I will consciously choose to enjoy what’s left of my vacation, and my long weekend. I’ll try to do activities that put stars in my eyes and light a fire in my soul. I’ll try to be present and in the moment, and not continue casting my mind on what’s awaiting my inbox on Tuesday morning. Time to let go.