First - the realization

Whenever life turns a corner, I experience two contrasting emotions. Let me first explain what turning a corner means to me. It usually means that I experience first hand something that I never knew before or I may have understood to be true, but I had never previously stepped in those shoes. After the experience, the realization becomes complete and meaningful.

The first emotion is happiness, even though sometimes the realization, or the experience that leads to it, is not happy. The realization I am about to describe here is not an unhappy one. It's about a relaxing vacation. All these years, I have perceived vacations as periods of time were one wrung out the last drips of juice from each milli-second, every waking moment was spent in exploring new areas, immersing in different cultures, sight-seeing and so on. I usually need a few days after a vacation to recuperate. The term R&R was not in my dictionary. Then, we made good a plan that we have discussed often over the years. We spent the weekend in Provincetown.
Provincetown is not that far from home, and for me, even closer from work. A day trip there is quiet possible, we have done it often, but spending the weekend there amounted to a relaxing vacation. I will hasten to add that "relaxing vacation" did not mean curling up on a recliner atop a deck, and hopping in and out of the hot-tub (the B&B offered both the hot tub and the deck). While the wife slept in, I went for a 6-odd mile bike ride, mostly through majestic sand dunes, in the early morning hours. After breakfast, we spent the better part of five hours walking around on different beaches (more on that in my next blog). After a relaxed meal, we ambled along Commercial Street, and retired back to the B&B to watch a movie. When the wife fell asleep a little way through the film, I crept in to the afore-mentioned hot-tub with the book du jour. The evening was spent in a little more sightseeing, a cozy dinner and another attempt to watch the movie, though we both fell asleep quickly. The next day, we climbed up to the top of the Pilgrim monument. Several pictures later, we left for home.

My point is that we did a lot, but it all seemed relaxed, we did not maximize our time there, a fair amount of time was spent lying around and watching {gasp} TV ! Yet, we left sated and feeling complete. I am happy, knowing what R&R truly means, and relieved at understanding that it is not a complete vegetative state.

The second emotion is sadness. I have to find some way to bring sadness into everything, it's genetic. My melancholy stems from the deeper realization that I have aged a little more, yet again. What are experiences if not markers of time.