Photo by Chantel Williams

I was looking in the mirror today and noticing things that I don’t usually see during my daily “getting ready to go to work ritual.” These very specific things I can only blame on the fact that I actually took a real vacation. This is not one of those alleged vacations where I pack a bag and travel far from home, stress out about the travel and the bag packing and then, stress during the travel itself then, look forward to getting home because work is generally more restful than my vacation.

 Signs that Chantel took a real vacation

• Sun has reached places on my body that I never thought possible without going naked. Besides a sunburn on my lips from a cruise on Lake Powell – my arms are almost tan and, the few freckles on my knees have turned dark brown. The highlights in my hair that I usually place carefully in my hair after 2 hours in a cramped bathroom with smelly chemicals seem to have magically appeared from the desert sun.

• My pedicure looks like an old Victorian home that’s far overdue for a coat of paint. Every day I look down and find another chunk of polish the size of the Grand Canyon missing from my toenail and I don’t even care.

• I haven’t put on make-up for three days and I don’t even care.

• The daily margarita almost became a chore. Then I realized that cocktails are never a chore for me and got with the program and made myself another margarita. Searching in Utah for tequila is a tough vocation.
  

• I only read 10 pages of the “vacation book” I packed in case of boredom.

• Hot dogs, pork and beans and potato chips seem like a perfectly reasonable meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  

• Every day that I unpack and repack my bag I intentionally do not fold one item of clothing. Today when I packed for the final leg of our trip home; I threw all of my crap into the suitcase, sat on it and zipped it up. Its only bothered me slightly since we left Lake Powell.

• I feel thinner. Not “my abs are so flat I want to high-five you and head to pilates class thin.” But,  I do feel like I’ve lost weight. The weight of the world that comes with over-due bills, moving, missing your children and, your dog and, to find a job in San Francisco weight.

Here’s to an end to a great vacation. Here’s to a new start in San Francisco. In two weeks you can find me there.

Let the week day worrying begin.