How Do You Vacation?

I haven’t had a vacation in over a year and outside of my trip to England for M’s wedding, since my parents moved to New Mexico, my vacations have primarily been trips to visit them.

Before that, I couldn’t really afford to take vacations but somehow I managed to scrounge up enough money for one out-of-town sci-fi convention every year — I went to Visions in Chicago once, MidSouthCon in Memphis a couple of times (once to see Timothy Zahn, who happened to be an A-Team fan, btw; and once to see Laurell K. Hamelton who stopped me in the hall to complement me on my “I am the bad guy” t-shirt), which always seemed to coincide with a speaking-in-tongues Baptist convention and you’ve never seen anything until you’ve seen small African American women chanting while genuflecting as they back out of a convention room and a troop of 6-foot plus tall Klingons back away in fear.  I’ve been to DragonCon at least three times and some local convention near Jefferson Davis’ home, when it was still standing, before Katrina.

After moving to Maine, I took one weekend trip to D.C. and one weekend trip at Halloween to Salem, MA.

The truth is that I don’t travel well.  Even if we take out the bad luck factor where luggage is likely to go MIA and flights are either going to be canceled or delayed by half a day, there is a large amount of anxiety involved.  I used to be certain that it had to do with a fear of flying (and the recent plane crashes have not helped with that theory); however, I now think it has more to do the stress of not being in control.

While I hate driving with a passion, I’m not all that fond of being a passenger either — it’s actually the time wasted in the car that bothers me, the inability to do something productive or at least do something I enjoy.  I feel that at least if I were the one in charge of the flight I could control when we leave, which would be as soon as I arrive at the airport so there would be none of that frustrating frittered away time where I feel uneasy about pulling out a laptop, a book, or a knitting project because any moment the flight attendant might make an announcement about boarding and then there would be lost time trying to rush to put things away.  If I were in control of the flight, I would be able to control how fast the plane was going and I would be able to see on some radar map just how far we had left, which would ease my mind perhaps — like in high school when I worked at the Winn Dixie, which I hated more than cleaning the toilet, and I would watch the clock and count the number of minutes I had left until I could go on break, to lunch, or home.

Instead, I have all of this anxiety about the waiting and the lack of control and it mostly starts from the time I know I’m going somewhere until I actually get back to my home.

Then there’s the pain of the fibromyalgia.  I don’t know why, but I can relax on my sofa for a whole lazy Saturday but 2 hours in a airplane seat will cause my body to hurt all over for two or three days.  After an hour, I usually feel as if someone has been torturing my legs and I want to tell anyone and everyone anything they want to know but no one is asking me anything.  All I know is my legs hurt so bad that I can’t keep them still.  It’s the kind of pain where if you rest it for just a millisecond, it burns, but you just know that if you move it to another position it will be better, but after you’ve moved it and let it rest for a millisecond, the burn returns.

That’s how my whole body feels on my worst days.  Usually it’s just my arms, hands, and legs though.

So, this is why the thought of traveling anywhere usually doesn’t sound like the funnest thing to me.

I am planning on taking my first vacation in over a year in July.  Originally I planned on visiting my parents for 2 weeks in New Mexico.  I like the idea even though it takes about 24 hours each way and it usually takes me a full day to recover each direction.  However, for the time I’m visiting with my parents, it’s nice to have a place to just be — somewhere to watch t.v., play on the computer, read books, knit,  talk with my mother, go shopping with my mother, go out to eat, occasionally go sightseeing, and just be lazy without worrying about work.

I’m not really a go sit in the sun-get-a-tan person as I am extremely fair-skinned and burn easy.  I’m also not really a go-adventuring-all-day person since I got sick.  The two weeks of daily sight-seeing in England nearly killed me.

So, the other day, my mother mentioned that maybe instead of my going to their house for two weeks, the three of us should go on a trip.  She suggested we go to Hawaii — “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

I didn’t even mention that I have no idea what people do on vacation in Hawaii other than tan and look at volcanoes; I just said, “No, not to me.”

“Why not?”

“It just sounds like a long plane ride.”  That had actually been the very first thought I’d had about the whole idea.  I think maybe a long time ago, I might have jumped at the idea of going to Hawaii, but now I don’t want to travel anywhere I don’t have to or the reward isn’t greater than the pain involved.

So that got me thinking.  What do other grownup people without kids do on vacation?  I need some suggestions.

Tagged as: A-Team, air travel, car trip, Chicago, Christmas, D.C., DragonCon, England, family, fibromyalgia, gallows, Grand Canyon, Hawaii, Hurricane Katrina, Jefferson Davis, Klingons, Laurell K. Hamelton, Memphis, MidSouthCon, New Mexico, Salem, sci-fi convention, Timothy Zahn, travel, vacation, Visions