This has been a weird vacation. Normally I spend weeks – even months – researching a destination, scheduling travel arrangements and planning an itinerary. I always said I enjoyed the planning as much as the vacation.

Well, this year everything went to hell. You can’t say I didn’t try. Work schedules and bank accounts would not cooperate. There were no reasonably priced rentals on the Gulf of Mexico that would take dogs – and I had to take my dog and I had to have sunsets. Even a cheap cruise that seemed perfect was booked solid.

Something was wrong. I shouldn’t have to work this hard to relax. My vacation mojo had vanished. I got anxious. I started to feel sorry for myself – “Woe is me, I have no one to go on vacation with.” I had two weeks looming before me and nothing to show for it. I was pushing too hard, trying to force the proverbial square peg into a round hole.

THAT was the problem – the square peg in the round hole. Before I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar I viewed the square-peg-in-the-round-hole conundrum as a challenge – a gauntlet that I must run. I pushed people, places and things to fit my expectations. I pushed hard – very hard. In hindsight, I rarely achieved what I thought I wanted.

I created a lot of resentments. No one likes to be squeezed like that. I caused a lot of anxiety. Would the travel-stars align as I had planned? Would everyone behave themselves so I could relax? I was not a happy camper.

I have learned that this kind of behavior stokes my depression and bipolar. I have learned to see and feel when I am pushing the square peg into the round hole. When it happens – and it happens a lot – I am supposed to stop what I am doing. Let it go. See what happens.

So, I am looking at these two weeks as God doing for me what I could not do for myself. I gave God the keys and let him drive and I sat in back. There have been no square pegs or round holes. But there have been a lot of naps, some baking of cookies and bread, quality time with my daughter, dog and the corals, yellow-tail snapper, barracuda, sharks, rays, eels, angel fish and ship wrecks on the ocean floor.

There have been afternoons wasted watching trash TV and leisurely work-outs at the gym. Stress-relief with my new chain saw in the backyard. Late night skinny dipping. Sunsets. Moon rises. Fried fish. Barefoot days. Rastafarian hair and brown skin. And NO NEWSPAPERS – NO CNN – NO NPR – a complete news blackout, except for the marine forecast.

Let me tell you, I am reeeeeelaaaxed. I am content. I am happy. I have not felt this good in a long time. For once, I actually feel ready to return to the real world. Come to think of it, maybe this last two weeks I have been in the real world. Hmmmm.

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    Last reviewed: 13 Aug 2009