Summer Staycation 2020 ... and the 7 things I learned from it

Hal and I decided in July that pandemic life had really taken a hard toll on both of us and that we really needed to take a vacation. We went back and forth and changed our minds so many times on whether we should go somewhere for at least a few nights or if we should just stay at home and do day trips in true staycation form. In the end, we decided that we weren't sure if we'd feel safe staying in a hotel and that we didn't want to board Belle, our sweet budgie, because she had gotten so used to at least one of us being at home most of the time and spending more time out of her cage than in it (I know, we are such suckers for her ever increasing cuteness... more on that in another post). So, we settled on staying at home and planning day trips, a spa day and balcony/hammock/pool days at home. Staycation 2020 was planned for the week of August 17.

That week of vacation has now come and gone. Most of it was amazing, but some parts were challenging and not at all what I was expecting. Through all of it, I gleaned some important insights... probably the first time that a vacation has taught me so much. Here are 7 of those insights and a video that I made from some of our staycation memories.

#1 - Rest is not found in a destination, but in a multitude of moments

I have always equated a true vacation and escape from the day-to-day with not being at home, but deciding to use our home as a starting point for each day meant that there was no ultimate destination for our vacation.

We really enjoy spending our vacations in places with a full kitchen so that we can cook our own meals, and it never feels like a chore to me to do the grocery shopping, cooking and dishes for those meals or to sweep the floor when it needs to be swept... but those things really did feel like chores to me during our vacation at home.

I struggled with being at home at times, because there was always something that needed to be cleaned... the kitchen, the dishes, Belle's cage and play area, the floors, etc. I wished so many times that we had gone away, but then I would go back to the reasons that we had decided to stay at home.

I eventually realized that being upset about having to do chores during our vacation that are a part of our every day life was taking away from the rest that I was finding in a multitude of other moments. We had amazing times of rest and rejuvenation during the days that we spent both away from and at home, and I finally saw that those moments of rest could exist in harmony with the chores that still needed to be done and that it was okay like that.

#2 - Every day can be a ______ day if you want it to be

Hal really wanted every day of our vacation to be a pool day (we live in an apartment building with a heated outdoor pool). His motto leading up to the vacation was "every day is a pool day" and we saw no reason why that wouldn't be possible since the weather in Montreal has been amazing all summer... really hot, lots of sun and very few days of rain. Then we saw the weather forecast for the vacation week... cool temperatures in the low 20s Celsius (low 70s Fahrenheit) and lots of days of rain.

Hal still wanted every day to be a pool day and so they all were, every single one... even when the temperature outside was cooler, it was windy and the pool water was really cold. It turns out that the concierge for the building was on vacation the same week as us and I think that either the heater for the pool wasn't working properly or that no one else really knew how to turn it on.

In any case, even when other people thought we were crazy for going to the pool and no one else had been in the water all day long, we went and we swam laps anyways and it was amazing... once I was in the water and swimming, of course, because it was really quite cold on some days and I just had to force myself to get in.

We could have let the weather stop us from making every day a pool day, but we chose not to and we're so thankful that we made that conscious decision. We had the pool to ourselves most of the time, we rediscovered the joy and peace of doing laps together, we built up our strength and endurance for swimming laps, and we are now looking forward to swimming laps together during the Fall in the indoor pool at the local aquatic centre.

#3 - Take the time to really listen to the perspective of others... it may end up changing yours

Tuesday's trip to the pool ended up being more of a conversation day for me than a swimming day. The lifeguard working that day was new to our pool, she hadn't really seen anyone all day long, and she was clearly longing for someone to talk to. Hal swam laps while I sat on the edge of the pool and talked to the lifeguard who had left her post at the lifeguard station and sat down in a sunny spot on the pool deck once we got in the pool, not so much to be on duty but to be within reach of a conversation. We talked about everything... her family, her country of origin, her studies, food, the pandemic, transportation, etc.

There was one part of that conversation that really stuck with me. I was talking about the challenges of living in an apartment building during a pandemic, because of the shared spaces and the mandatory wearing of masks in public spaces. I totally agree with the decision of the Quebec government to make masks mandatory and I now feel much safer when I am in public places, but I really struggled with the idea that the hallways, elevators, laundry room, gym, and indoor garage of our apartment building are considered public spaces, meaning that we cannot even leave our apartment without putting on a mask.

That said, the lifeguard's perspective on that really struck me. She is a student who lives at home with her family. They live in a house, which I would have thought would be heaven... no shared entrance or spaces, private laundry room, more space, a yard, etc. Her perspective was very different. For her, living in a house meant the bubble was even smaller, which was even more isolating, because you could literally go days without seeing anyone other than your family members.

It was then that I realized that those shared spaces (the lobby of the building, the bench outside the building where tenants will often sit and talk to whoever is going in or out of the building, the park across the street where tenants will sometimes gather, the laundry room, the pool, and even our balcony from which we can talk to people in the outdoor parking lot and the pool) are all sources of human connection, socially distanced connection, of course. How many conversations with other tenants have I had in each of those shared spaces over the last 5 months? I cannot even count them because there have been so many. I had been so focused on the negative aspects of those shared spaces that I had been completely blind to the positive aspects.

I'm thankful to that lifeguard for sharing her perspective and for the opportunity to change mine.

#4 - It's okay to grieve

I came across this post on Facebook one day during our vacation and I so needed to read these words.

Please remind yourself, the inexplicable sadness or exhaustion or irritation you feel these days isn't a flaw, it's your soul grieving all the ambiguous losses of living through a pandemic.

Your groans are grief.

And your grief is not pathological or a problem.

We have all experienced so many ambiguous losses over the past six months, some which are hard to even name. I needed to hear that it's okay to grieve in this time and that I actually need to so that I can release it from my body.

Grief is a seed that will grow you into someone who loves. Grief is an embrace that will wrap your losses into a story you can live with. Grief is a seat you can take to welcome the dawning of God's new world.

So, today, please remind yourself, your groans deserve to be named. And grief that is named and felt is grief that is released like a seed to grow a story that is good.

I think that I have too often fought my grief in the past six months, trying to ignore it or shove it down to a place where I couldn't feel it so much... but I felt it, my body felt it deeply, far more deeply than I realized. I struggled to find a "valid" reason for it most of the time.

I still so clearly remember the day that I found out that Belle's mama had died. I sobbed and sobbed and I didn't really understand why. I cried every time that I thought about it over the next few days. I finally wrote a blog post later that week to let out that grief and I cried so hard while I was writing it that it was sometimes hard to see my computer screen. I have often wondered since then why it impacted me so much. I now think that it was partly because I couldn't imagine the pain of losing our sweet Belle and partly because my body so desperately needed a reason to cry and to let out some of the pain of the losses caused by the pandemic.

One of the activities that we planned for our vacation was a spa day at the Polar Bear's Club. It was an incredible day. The spa is open from 10 am to 7 pm, and we were there from 10:20 am to 6:55 pm. We had booked one-hour therapeutic massages and we spent the rest of the time in the nordic baths. The tension that my massage therapist found, worked on and released from my muscles during the massage was unbelievable.

Like an allergy to nuts or gluten, our resistance to grief lives in our cells and is activated in our bodies. When the substance of sorrow shows up in your day, your body likely reacts to it like a threat. In a pounding heart, tense muscles, trembling hands, or trouble breathing, your brain shouts (without you realizing it), "Avoid!" "Keep running! This isn't safe!”

I read the Facebook post the day after our spa day, and I finally understood the connection between grief and what I have been experiencing in my body for the last six months. I need to remind myself that it's okay to grieve and to name those groans.

#5 - Radical acceptance is not defeat

I came across an online article during our vacation that was written by a science journalist on the roller coaster reality of living through a pandemic, the physical and emotional responses we are experiencing, and some tips for managing the ongoing uncertainty. It's a long article, but is definitely worth the read.

The author explains the concept of surge capacity, puts the pandemic into perspective as an unprecedented disaster, examines and puts into context the concept of ambiguous loss, and finally offers 7 pieces of wisdom for navigating life right now. The whole article is good and the pieces of wisdom are practical, but I really had an ah-ha moment when I read the first piece of wisdom - Accept that life is different right now.

That seems obvious, but I realized when I read those words that I had been fighting that acceptance not just throughout our vacation but since the pandemic began. Mentally and emotionally fighting against reality when that reality is not within my control to change is futile.

Maddaus’ approach involves radical acceptance. “It’s a sh*tty time, it’s hard,” he says. “You have to accept that in your bones and be okay with this as a tough day, with ‘that’s the way it is,’ and accept that as a baseline.”

But that acceptance doesn’t mean giving up, he says. It means not resisting or fighting reality so that you can apply your energy elsewhere. “It allows you to step into a more spacious mental space that allows you to do things that are constructive instead of being mired in a state of psychological self torment.”

Radical acceptance doesn't mean giving up or accepting defeat. That ah-ha moment drastically changed for me the last two days of our vacation, and the days since then. The chores, the weather, the plans that had to be changed and a few other things had left me feeling disappointed with our vacation at times and my thought process before reading the article was sometimes akin to the psychological torment the author describes.

While I was contemplating the concept of radical acceptance, the Serenity Prayer came to my mind. When I looked it up online, I found the full version of it. The shortened version that I knew beforehand is actually only the first verse.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

#6 - It really is important to make the bed

Did your mom teach you to make your bed every morning? Mine did, but it may also have been something that was just innate for me. My mom tells a story of me making my own bed as a very young child, while I was still sleeping in a crib. My mom found me in the crib one morning and I was arranging the sheets and blankets and making my bed! I'm not even sure how I knew how to do that, but I guess I had learned from watching my mom.

As a habit, I still make the bed most mornings, but I got out of that habit for quite a few days while we were on vacation. Maybe it was my rebellion against doing chores while on vacation or maybe I was just being lazy. Either way, the bed got very, very messy!

I have heard lots of reasons both for and against making the bed in the morning and I was not particularly on one side or the other. I just grew up making my bed in the morning and, quite honestly, I think that the bedroom looks so much neater when the bed is nicely made. What I realized during our vacation was that, for whatever reason, I actually sleep better when I get into a bed that had been made instead of a bed that was a total mess. Interesting revelation!

I'm not even really sure of the reason behind it but now I know that, for me anyways, it really is important to take the time to make the bed!

#7 - When the rain comes and forces your plans to change, go with it and find joy anyways

As I mentioned, the weather in Montreal was really amazing for most of the summer and we didn't have very many days of rain, but that all started to change during the week of our vacation. It rained a LOT during that week and we had to change our plans numerous times to work around the weather since most of the day trips that we had planned involved being outside. In the end, we changed our plans so many times that we didn't actually get to do all of the things that we had wanted to do. But we were able to do other things on those days that we hadn't planned for and we were also able to just rest. We had no choice but to just go with the changes and look for sweet joy on those days too.

I really struggled through parts of our vacation because it wasn't always what I wanted or thought I needed. That said, I've also never learned so much during a vacation and what I learned is shaping me as I walk into the new season that September and the coming months represent for me and Hal, none of which was even a thought before the pandemic.

For me, our vacation was an interesting parallel with living through these challenging times. When 2020 started we had plans and we weren't expecting rain, never mind the torrential downpour of this year, particularly the past 6 months. When the pandemic started, I definitely didn't understand what it meant to live through such a crisis or how long it would last. I first thought that it would be over in a few weeks, which then turned into a few months. I was in sheer shock the first time that I heard the prediction that the pandemic could last for 18 months, and then two years.

I now hear and read a lot about building resilience and learning to live with the pandemic and its uncertainty. It's really uncomfortable to have our lives thrown into complete disarray and to live with constant uncertainty and change but I am slowly learning to go with it and to look for sweet joy in every day anyways. I am realizing that the joy is still there, albeit maybe a bit harder to find on some days, but that I will find it if I look for it instead of focusing on the rain.

Hal really enjoyed posting some of our vacation memories on Instagram, which gave me the idea to make a video out of those memories. When I was thinking about the song that I would use for the video, the first one that came to my mind was the song "Joy" by for KING & COUNTRY. I love the lyrics of the song, particularly this line because it encapsulates so well what I personally realized during our vacation: "The time has come to make a choice and I choose joy." Click here to watch the video of our summer staycation 2020 memories.