Staycation Preparation

Helmut Lang blazer (similar)
Zara tank (similar)
Oak + Fort jeans (c/o) (similar)
Mango heels
Friday by JW Pei handbag (similar)
Zara sunglasses (similar)
Linjer rings (c/o) (similar)
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: Fort Garry Place – Winnipeg, Manitoba

As of tomorrow afternoon at 4:01 pm, I will be on vacation. That dawned on me sometime yesterday, and was swiftly followed by the realisation that I’ve never been less excited for a period of time off than I am for this one.

Vacation in 2020 doesn’t look like vacation in 2019. At least not for an avid traveller like me. Next week will be a staycation. The last time I took one of those was in 2015, when I learned late in the year that I’d miscalculated my annual vacation allotment. Even then, we drove down to Seattle mid-way through the week when Ian wasn’t working. To me, the word vacation is synonymous with travel, and it always has been. The idea of spending the next week at home, doing laundry and washing dishes like I normally would, is not totally unappealing, and I can admit that. But definitely not something that inspires much enthusiasm in me, either.

(I should clarify that travel to some provinces within Canada is currently allowed, but I don’t personally think it’s the right choice when so many new COVID-19 cases are travel-related. I’ve made the choice to abstain from travel accordingly. That’s my decision, but someone else’s might be different.)

This week, I’ve been brainstorming ways that I can make my staycation more interesting. I’ve made brunch plans, a wine date, and I’m envisioning a drive to the beach, weather permitting. But after each of those activities, I’ll come home again.

Home, again. It’s not that I’m not grateful, in this crazy year, to have a home to come back to every day, and a job that allows me to take vacation. I absolutely am. But everything this year is an adjustment. I love my routines, a fact I’ve talked about so many times that a search for the word “Routine” on this blog brings up ten pages of results. Every time I’m forced to break one and replace it with something new is a personal struggle. Does that mean my life is hard? Not remotely. But it’s the challenge I’m dealing with in 2020 and I want to be open about that because, frankly, everyone is struggling this year. While some problems may be more serious than others, all problems are valid and need to be acknowledged, because we can’t fix what we refuse to address.

So here I am, reluctantly into staycation preparation mode. I’ve done my best to fill my calendar for the week in the hopes of leaving myself little time to dwell on what might have been. (And little time to spend money on things I don’t actually need, since I have such a knack for that even when I’m working.) After all, time off is a luxury not everyone is lucky to have and is worthy of appreciation, even if it can’t be spent exactly the way we might want to spend it.

How are you spending time this summer? Are you able to travel and, if so – do you feel comfortable doing it?

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