I write to you on a sweltering week day, as I sit outside with our dog Brooklyn, a week after returning from our first vacation in about a year and a half! Whew!
With that in mind, I want to write to you about the importance of taking a pause.
Pam and I have been two of the most pandemic – agreeable folks on the planet, or at least I’m guessing (since I haven’t yet polled everyone). But since last March, we have been dutifully in our home, limiting our outside contact, following whatever the ever-changing recommendations were in the moment.
It still blows my mind that in January 2020, we were running footloose and fancy free around Asia, not aware of the turmoil that was brewing, and which hit the fan not long after we returned. We were lucky. Really lucky.
Anyhoo….
We love to travel. It’s one of those things that we have grown into together, from a mere interest to a real love. So it’s been reeeeealllly hard for us to stay put, as our travel plans for summer 2020 got pushed back and eventually cancelled.
But here we are. With things settling a bit, we thought it was time that we dipped our toes back into the traveling waters.
We wanted to do it but, ever the dutiful pandemic survivors, we wanted to do it safely. It had to be somewhere that wasn’t too far. Outside activities and dining had to be an option pretty much all the time. We didn’t want crowds. Dog-friendly was a must because, let’s face it, even our dog deserved a vacay.
See, we needed a pause. We needed a pause in our regularly scheduled programming.
One of us *cough* Pam *cough* really only distances herself from her regularly scheduled programming while away.
And though we loved our home, we needed a change in scenery.
We also needed to know and feel like there was a life to be desired in the post-Covid world.
Taking a pause, pandemic or not, is so incredibly important. It slows your life down. It can create clarity in other areas.
Sometimes it can be hard to see some things unless you remove the noise.
Pausing helps remove the noise.
Here, I’m talking about using a vacation as a pause to a brutal pandemic, but of course, it doesn’t have to be.
A walk during a work day can help clear your head.
A sweet treat can help break the monotony of a new healthy meal plan. Maybe you’ll return to that healthy eating style the next day realizing that you don’t miss those treats as much as you thought or by learning that you can have that treat and still get right back on track the next day.
And how about stopping action during the grind of the dating scene to ponder what you’ve learned and what you still need and want to know?
If you’re lucky on the dating scene, you may find yourself in a whirlwind of possibilities. Some of these “possibilities” are good fits for you, and others not so much. But they’re there.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed in the dating process or really any spot in your life, take a pause.
A pause. Not a stoppage.
Time to relax. Reflect. Appreciate. Evaluate.
You know how you probably turn down the car radio so you can do things like operate the ATM?
Take that pause and turn down life’s noise so you can focus on the task at hand.