Vacation conclusion

inconvenience of visiting, night shift and recovery, time and choices

It is a sad indictment of our society that we have forgotten how to interact; with our children, with our elders, even in large part with our friends. It has been the lot of my wife and I, and by default ,our children, to be the ones who had to make the trip to see whomever needed to be visited. Most of our vacations are still planned around family we need to see, who would not be seen if we do not make the effort to go to them.

I am not complaining. Keeping such close ties has kept the family strong and connected. Those far away from us ( several hundreds of miles) know we will come. After all, it is we who have moved away and in doing so have assumed that effort.

The friends we visited with today are much closer, only an hour away. Yet, even with them it takes a considerable effort to coordinate schedules, set aside the time and make the trip. It is always worth the trip, the time and the minor setbacks in scheduling,

I worked a surprise 12-hour night shift last night so my family had to wait on me to sleep for several hours before we could leave. For me it is always a “blah” time when I swap back between nights and days, so I have to be careful not to give in to the feelings of just wanting to lay around – vegetate. Once moving, I pick up steam and gather the emotional energy it takes to interact with those not within my normal frame of reference.

I am glad we went. These particular friends will be relocating internationally early next month. Skype will be our only contact, but it will be a point of contact to keep up with the growing children and the aging parents.

Life really is very short.

Who do you need to call or visit? Who is slowly growing “out of touch”? A friend, a neighbor, a relative? Sadly, in some homes it could be the person in the next room or the person sitting beside you on the couch.

Make an effort. Even an attempt that fails is better than no attempt at all. I like to keep “short accounts”. That is, I try to do it now rather than wait. A dear friend of ours taught our children, “To delay is to disobey.”

There is no easy way, but for things that matter as much as personal relationships, there really shouldn't be one.