What is Vacation?

I have heard it said of Americans that they work hard and play hard as well. They are accused of not knowing how to relax. Is a vacation's purpose for relaxation? Sometimes that may be true. And sometimes a vacation is just an opportunity to to do something different, something out of the ordinary.

Lately I had been very busy at work. Then I started renovation of an old bathroom in our house. And then I also started work on a significant project at our church replacing a rainwater drainage system.

I like my day job. Although there are stresses in it, I feel that what I do benefits other people - my co-workers, and our ultimate customers - medical patients. However since my company gives me vacation hours I feel that I should use them at times. I started on two weeks of vacation last Monday.

The bathroom project was well under way by the time I started my time off of my regular job. I immediately transitioned into full-time work on the house. A lot has been accomplished - it is now into the finishing stage. But it has felt very fatiguing to me. I have not had a free day for quite a while and I am particularly affected by that.

The last two days have been even more intensive work on a drainage system. I have been digging ditches (literally). The hours have been longer and the labor has been harder than anything else. However it has been with friends. There is something about working together with friends: the mutual challenge, the admiration of their dedication to the effort and the satisfaction in seeing a hard task accomplished together with them.

The last two days were the hardest work of this summer, and I have become very sore in body. Yet I feel more relaxed in mind than in quite a few days! I wouldn't say that the week has been much like a vacation, but in some ways it actually has.