While vacationing in San Francisco recently, my husband and I spent a relaxing afternoon walking along a quiet beach and exploring a cave. While we enjoyed our little picnic, we noticed three giddy teenage girls giggling, running around, and splashing in the water—seemingly without a care in the world. We envied their youthfulness, their energy, and their care-free attitudes. In comparison, we felt…old.
Here we were out on what could be called a good date, and we were talking about work of all things, while my husband was checking his email on his phone! It wasn’t that long ago that my husband and I had the vitality of those girls. What happened along the way? I don’t know anybody in their late twenties and early thirties who embody the kind of attitude that those girls had. Do we lose our youthfulness after we get “real jobs”? Or is it after we are strapped down with mortgage payments and the joys/burdens of having kids?
As adults, we want to take vacations to “get away from it all.” But technology rarely lets you get away completely. And it’s even more difficult to turn off the annoying part of our brain that focuses on work and paying the bills (even when you are on a lovely date in a city thousands of miles away from home).
Those teenage girls served as a good reminder to let loose once in awhile and forget our day-to-day worries. It comforts me to think that buried deep down in all of us there is still that adolescent version of ourselves just itching to do something spontaneous and fun. Maybe we should all throw off our smelly shoes once in awhile and feel the sand between our toes.
Other Posts You Might Like:
Taking a Vacation without Baby
Staying Young at Heart
15 Things I Miss About Being a Kid
