Taking A Vacation From My Vacation

That sounds totally weird, right?  Taking a vacation from a vacation.

But when you’re chronically ill, sometimes that has to happen.

I recently traveled to California, and upon returning to New York, I felt like I needed to recover.

Don’t get me wrong.  The vacation was great and very relaxed.

And yet, staying up for almost 24 hours between leaving New York and going to sleep in California, two-, six and a half hour flights, and a three hour time change, is a lot for my body to handle. 

Thankfully, I was with people who were more understanding than most.  We didn’t plan any activities that would be super strenuous or taxing, but I still needed to pace myself. 

Saturday afternoon I took a nap, which was much needed since we had plans in the evening.  Sunday we drove to Sonoma, so that was pretty relaxing.  And Monday we explored San Francisco. 

Lately, I’ve felt like I am flaring.  Like really.  Which hasn’t happened in a while.

I’ve been totally exhausted, to the point that I was when I first got sick.  I’m in a lot of pain.  And most recently, I’ve had the tell tale pain under my right rib. 

And I don’t want to blame it on vacation.  Because if you can’t sit back and relax when you are on vacation, when can you?

It seems like getting back into my daily routine of activity and commuting has hit me really hard.  I definitely needed a vacation from that – and in that respect – I don’t think my vacation was long enough.

In reality, vacation is a word I haven’t seen in a while, and it was a much needed break. 

But it has made me realize that I need to re-evaluate things.  I need to have a contingency plan.  I need to figure out how much vacation time I need after a vacation. 

Does it matter if it’s a car trip versus a train trip versus a plane trip? 

Does it matter if I end up in a different time zone? 

Does it matter if I’m traveling alone or with other people?

Again, don’t get me wrong.  The vacation was totally worth it.  We saw good people, ate good food, and soaked up some much needed sun that we hadn’t seen in about four months during the eternal winter we’ve been having.      

So if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, blog-wise, I was on vacation, and then since then, I have been recovering from my vacation.