Upcoming Respite

During my working years, excessive frazzle periodically became not only apparent but limited my professional effectiveness.  I knew I needed time away and usually place away.  Someplace mostly reachable by air.  Retirement has modified that feeling considerably, though my wife and I have taken vacations, including two overseas.  Each time, though, it seemed more a desire to break the routine or seek an adventure, not a desperate escape.  Two times I've gone away on my own for brief overnight stays.  Seven years into retirement, a mostly peaceful time, that frazzle has returned.

It's hard to tell why.  Recent months have seen the arrival of our first two grandchildren.  That meant some traveling.  It meant living as house guests of our children.  It meant being at home without my wife for most of a month.

Some of my recreation and social engagement have broken down.  While I attend the senior division of my state university, as I have done for years, the classes did not connect as well with me.  My synagogue annoys me, even though only a couple of individuals are really direct irritants and I engage in my share of activities.  I do this as a consumer of somebody else's programming, though, never as a creator.  

My own development of systematic routines has gotten effective.  My Space nears completion.  I have times to express myself in writing and in video.  Exercise gets done on schedule with improvement in well-being.  Some of my medical aging could be better, but none out of control or needing drastic intervention.

Even though much perks along, annoyances are more petty than disabling, for the first time in a while that feeling of needing an escape, some private time with my wife and me, has returned.

My model solution might have been a short cruise.  Show up, eat when you want, visit a port, see a show, splash in the pool.  Not realistic.  No drivable ports this cold season.  In another age, my youth, I likely would have reserved a room at a Catskills kosher resort.  Show up, overeat with no menu restrictions, watch some kitsch entertainment, go to the pool.  Those places are no more.  There are still resorts with activities, just not with the dining options of Royal Caribbean or Grossinger's.  Some Search Engines brought me to a few within an acceptable drive.

The last few times away, I've returned home thinking I stayed one day longer than I should have.  After consultation with my wife, we settled on a resort, one intended for ski enthusiasts, which we are not.  Aquatics in place.  Maybe some snow tubing.  Don't know about dining.  Close enough to population centers that we could find a brewpub or winery.  Three nights should be about right.  Without air travel, and with only three days, I can overpack a little, cover most of my recreational contingencies.  No sites to tour or museums to visit.  Not even spanning Shabbos. Just some overdue couples time.