POST VACATION BLUES

Posted by: Anne Tergesen on January 11, 2007

Like everyone, I love vacation. But re-entry to normal, everyday life can be painful. Sometimes, the shock of re-entry makes me even question whether going away is worth it at all. (Of course it is, but what a price to pay!)

Like many parents of relatively young children, I don’t take the most restful or relaxing vacations.

But no matter how crazy things get—ie: when one of my children threw up in our rental car just minutes after his brother wet his pants—it’s still refreshing to get a break from the constant demands of work and school. With no deadlines, my stress level falls. Freed from the tedious chores that consume many evenings—such as balancing my checkbook and cleaning the house—I get way more sleep than normal. I slow down and start to put things in perspective (Multiplication? Who cares!).

When I get back to work, I pay for my newfound Zen state, though. I find it almost impossible to care about the mountain of email that clogs my in-box or the deadlines that loom. Why not take a break to chat with colleagues, organize my sons’ birthday parties, and return a few personal phone calls? Of course, I lag further and further behind until I have no choice but to kick into super-high-gear. The mellow vacation mood doesn’t gradually fade away: It’s obliterated.

What can be done to make the re-entry to regular life less jarring? This summer, I experimented a bit. On one week-long vacation, I checked my email three times (on the afternoons the local public library was open). I called in for my voice messages once a day. My theory? By sporadically keeping in touch with work, I’d stay somewhat focused, while reducing the “housecleaning” I’d have to catch up on once I returned to the office. The problem: It didn’t really work. When I got back to work, I was still in a slacker mood. And my daily dive into work made the first vacation less fun and relaxing than the second.

My new plan: Rather than take four one-week vacations—thus setting myself up for four bouts of post-vacation blues—I’ll try three longer breaks. I just hope I can cope with three more episodes of the post-vacation blues this year.

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