Vacation

So my three youngest are down in Santa Cruz with their Mom for a little vacation before school starts back up. As I transferred them all some money to make the trip more affordable, I thought back over my vacations over the years.

I used to love those trips. But the last one I remember was to the Grand Canyon in, I think, 2009. That was also near the end of the time I had a partner.

When people at work ask me whether I will take a vacation soon, I never know how to answer. Where would I go? What would I do? Who would I see?

For the past six years all I have done is work, try to save money, and take care of my kids. I have never taken any kind of break.

At this point, I doubt I ever will.

Why?

I always depended on my partner, whether a wife or girlfriend, to arrange those trips. I guess I never figured out how to do something like that on my own. Usually we did what she wanted to do. Maybe I never really had any real idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do.

And now it is way too late. I am super-focused on saving money, like my Scots grandfather taught me, so my kids have something when I am gone. It is increasingly difficult just to manage the day to day, on my own.

So I have no vacation plan and furthermore, have no fantasy or vision of any kind of vacation I would even like to take. Home and work is all I have, all I can handle.

So, over and out on that front. I am here, at home and work, paying for everything I can out of my relatively modest public broadcasting salary.

But no complaints.

-30-