Ugly Sweater Holiday Pack
I’m writing this from a hotel in San Francisco. I forgot how in big cities, everything is compact and tight. People to the front of you, the back of you, on top, below, and to your sides. Outside my hotel window, there’s rolling hills of apartments and businesses. If I turn my head over my right shoulder, I can see a group of people exercising in a gym across the street. A Bud Light Seltzer “Ugly Sweater Holiday Pack” advertisement posted during a past Christmas season on the gym is a monstrosity. Capitalism with a touch of alcoholic camp. If I look left, I just see a messy pile of luggage, the kind of pile that you throw on the second hotel bed that you don’t plan on using for sleep.
I’m lucky that my hotel window is facing east; I get to watch the sun rise over the horizon. This trip wasn’t what I expected it to be, in the best way. The sense that I was feeling while driving through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California was something akin to zen. Just a state of ease and calm. The beautiful landscapes throughout the country side are a wonder. The large, scattered boulders and the frayed, dusty vegetation. Driving through foothills and valleys, wondering how all this life was created from space, rock and water.
Taking spontaneous trips has never been my thing (though, now, I wish it was). Why take this trip now? I’m not fully sure. I’m at the crossroads with making some important decisions in my life. All in all, I’m using this time to myself to figure out what’s next and to have fun. The last trip I took was December 2019. And the last time I wasn’t in front of a TV, phone or computer screen for an extended period of time was forever ago. Decompressing and regrouping is a good thing.
I wrote this not intending to post it to my blog, but here we are and I’m not sure how to land this plane. I will say this though: don’t hoard your PTO. Banking 100 PTO hours will never make sense.
The Marc Rob 