Sand In My Shoes

by Allison Pang

I suppose it's no great surprise I'm all about the beach. Or the shore, really. (That's a New Jersey/Philly thing, I think. Everyone else says they're going to the beach. We all say we're going down the shore.) And I've actually blogged about it several times here and on my various other blogs, so I'm not sure it's worth rehashing most of the same stories at this point.

But really there's just so much family history at the shore house that of any vacation destination we might choose to go, that's the one I would probably choose above all the others.

And it's not that other beaches aren't nice, but this one is home.

It's not perfect either - but a bad day at the beach is still better than a good day at work, as they say.

Still, I think one of the hardest things to reconcile for my family and the whole vacation thing is how we spend our time. When I go down the shore, all I want to do is chill, at least for the first few days. It always takes my body that long to realize that it actually *can* relax, and it when does, the main thing it wants to do is sleep. Or nap. Or nap on the beach. Or sleep in a chair at the beach. Or in the hammock.

Sounds boring, but I've been doing this enough by now to know that's just how I work biologically. Best thing to do is let me get it out of my system and catch up on that rest and then I'm good to go do other things. Otherwise I end up being crankypants for the entirety  of the week, simply because I'm dragging.

Which is where the differences come in. When the DH goes on vacation? He wants to go, go, go. It took us a while to sort that out, because for him vacation is wasted if we're just sitting around doing nothing...and for me, vacation IS doing nothing. (Or it's doing quiet things, like catching up on reading or sewing or any number of activities that I just don't have the time for when I'm working.) I guess in some ways that going to the shore is more about retreat than vacation - no phones, no internet, no nothing except the sea and the sand and the sun.

But that's the way I like it.