Winter Vacation With Snow

On New Year’s Eve I got even more me-time. I was going to pick up my son on January 1st and drive him up to the cabin for our second week of vacation. A full evening and morning to myself! I was invited to a neighbor’s New Year’s Eve festivities but opted to write, watch a show, and go to bed early so that I could write more in the morning. I understand that not everyone would make this choice. I like time to myself. I like writing. I also like my friends, and see them regularly. But I had had plenty of social festivities the entire week prior.

In the past, I would beat myself up over a decision like this and call myself boring. Those judgments aren’t helpful to anyone. It is actually very liberating to honestly answer what makes you happy and what you find most important. No judging. Some people are happiest when they spend as much time as possible with family or friends. Others like to go fishing, work, read a book, binge watch a show. As long as it truly makes you happy, no need to hide it.

In my book, I have people do a similar exercise with all the roles they have in their life. I ask them to weigh how important each role is. Then I have them check if the way they organize their life is in line with those priorities. If you find family most important, do you have high quality relationships with family? If you find work most important, do you feel good about your work? Again, no judging. It does not matter what your parents, colleagues, friends, or your eight million followers think of your life. You are the only one living it, so as long as you are on the same page with the people closest to you, organize it in a way that makes you happy.

I had just written up one of the final interview for my book - a success story of a partner at a consulting firm who juggles work and being a single parent - when it was time to pick up my son. I drove over to his dad’s house, where I met his dad’s girlfriend for the first time. She seemed absolutely lovely. For New Year’s Eve, she and her parents (visiting from out of town) had put together an evening full of home made games for my son. He had managed to stay up until midnight. At least someone in our family had been social on the last day of the year.

With a mixture of feeling grateful and relaxed, I kicked off the second week of my two-week vacation. Whereas I am usually stuck to a schedule, we now played it by ear. Since there was so little snow, I put our bikes on the back of the car. We had a late lunch on the road. I stayed in this mode the rest of the week. We made do with the little snow we had, and took more frequent hot chocolate breaks. We found little jumps on the side of the runs and entertained ourselves that way. On toddler days, I took my daughter on long walks, visited nana and poppa, and I read during her naps. Nothing had changed really, except for my attitude. I had been forced into a slower pace of life. Forced out of planning, to-do lists, and ‘doing something useful’ mode.

Just when I was at peace with our new pace, we got a huge dump of snow. It was the last Saturday of our vacation and it had gotten cold again. In addition to the new snow, the snow machines started pumping out snow again. We could finally ski without getting stuck on an icy mogul field. It seemed like everyone else had left so there were barely any lineups. We skied and skied, until there was nothing more to ski. And my son asked remorsefully, “can we go back home now? I like it when we just chill on the couch before we have to do stuff”.

So we did. We chilled. I was still in chill mode on Monday morning, when I opened my email and a shitstorm of requests came my way. I dealt with them one by one. Because, what was the point in trying to run faster than you can?