Day 23 - Favorite Vacation

Much like yesterday this entry will be shorter, perhaps even shorter because I have mostly given an overview of the few places I have been to that have left lasting impressions on me. It also does not help that many of the youthful memories I have of vacation are all that pleasant. There was the time at Disney in Florida that I broke down in tears because I was lost in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, or when we went to the Bahamas when I was 8 or 9 and I spent the flight and first two days vomiting until I thought my stomach would come out.

Here's what I am going to do, I will simply tell about the best thing labeled as a vacation that I have had. It would have to be, hands down, the summer vacation after senior year in high school. It seemed like we, my friends, were at someone's house each night. Always hanging out, squeezing those dying days so tight we felt marrow. I don't remember taking many trips that summer, I don't even know if I went to the beach when everyone did, but I do know that I had a damn fine time. Days of youth spark out, nights burned away by my pool. I think I got a fucking tan! Like a tan that stood out from my normal skin tone. It was absolutely crazy. And it all led up, seemingly perfectly, to the release of Superbad. It was like an explosion of Michael Cera awesomeness, a birthday present a few days after the celebration of my springing forth in to this world. It all culminated with, while not the final, a goodbye that seemed to be injected with finality. I don't like the generic descriptors of life being a bunch of chapters, or a string of sections in an orchestra, becoming an opera, becoming the zeitgeist. But a time was ending. And it was sad, I didn't cry but it was damn sad. We stood out back, the stars coming out, of a movie theater that no longer exists. At the end of the film Seth and Evan don't say goodbye, they just drift apart, they look back longingly, but they move on. It's a sublime moment, and I remind myself of the two youths as I lovingly, with reserved terror, concealed excitement, limitless uncertainty, look back on this moment. And I know. I am sure, perhaps more sure of anything else, that I have a memory. That I had a vacation, a damn emotional vacation.

Thanks for reading.

Tomorrow's Topic: Something You've Learned

Rich