The end of summer vacation is fast approaching and both my wife and I will go back to work this coming Monday. I am totally looking forward to it!
Note the sarcasm.
Well, it isn't that bad and I am sure that once there I will quickly get back into the groove of things, but right now, it is like that fear of going back to the the gym after a month off - which is also on the cards starting in August. The membership at our new gym kicks off on the 1st, and I am looking forward to it. It is kind of sad though, because while I haven't been going much in the last couple years, I had been a member at my old gym for nineteen years break-free.
But the vacation isn't over yet.
As the last hurrah, we won't be flying anywhere at all, but we will be taking the train down to Helsinki for a night, as I promised Smallsteps that I would take her to see some dinosaur bones. She loves dinosaurs, but doesn't really have a sense of their size, so this way she can get up close and personal and compare herself. The Museum of Natural History in Finland isn't huge, nor does it have a lot of dinosaurs, but according to their site at least, they have a couple, and that will suffice to make the point.
This will be the first museum of this kind Smallsteps will visit and I am expecting that she is going to get bored pretty quickly. We won't be there for long anyway, but I do hope that she finds something of interest that she can dig into with her curious questions over the next few weeks. Kids (at least Smallsteps) tends to let things ruminate a bit for a while before really digging down into them.
We have a hotel for the night, which is quite a nice one for the price, as I think they were having a bit of a deal for the end of summer or something. Or perhaps they are renovating and there will be drilling all day and night - either way, it is in the city center so we can find something for dinner easily enough. One of the benefits of being in Finland is, there is almost always something to cater for food allergies, as they are so common here.
And then on Friday, we are going to do another first and spend the day at the zoo. None of us have been to the Helsinki Zoo before, so it is going to be a new thing for the entire family, which is cool. I like zoos, as while I might not be a fan of animals being locked up, good zoos tend to look after their animals well enough and I think that people being able to see exotic and unfamiliar animals can help them more appreciate the world in which we live.
The Zoo is so free with its animals, they are missing a Boa.
Oops.
If I find it, I am going to capture it.
Get back to my Australian roots.
The zoo does have some lions and tigers, but they don't have the larger African animals. But, I believe Smallsteps is going to have a ball there, as like most kids and especially girls, she loves animals. She has never really seen any of these things before outside of books, so I reckon that after seeing bones on day one, seeing them move will be a good finish, before coming home to get prepared for heading back to work. Smallsteps still has another week and a half off, so she will spend some days at home while we are working here, and some with her grandparents. Depending on my work, I might take a couple days off as well, since I have a lot of days in my bank.
I think this holiday has been the first one since Smallsteps was born that felt like a holiday. Every summer we have had time off, but it has always been somehow "ruined" in the sense that we couldn't fully enjoy it and spent most of the time at home.
The first summer after she was born (2017), even after nine months, my wife was still recovering, Smallsteps had severe allergies and wasn't sleeping and we were flat broke from covering baby formula.
The second, still very broke, Smallsteps had a seizure (still don't know the cause) in May and we spent the summer in and out of hospital a lot having scans and checkups. Still covering the baby formula and spending tens of hours every week experimenting with different foods. Everything had to be boiled and frozen, before she could even try it and most things failed. Wife was also finishing her Masters, so I was at home looking after the baby so she could study in peace.
The third I had also started a second job at the start of 2019 (trying not to be broke) and had no summer holidays, just working. The highlight was going for a night to Helsinki to See Ed Sheeran in concert.
After working and saving up some money, we had plans for 2020, but ended up buying a house that needed renovating, then getting locked into it with no travel options by the government for a year, as prices for building materials skyrocketed. Leaving us broke.
Just before the summer holidays in 2021, I had a "bit of a headache" (stroke) and ended up not being able to do much at all for a few months, even though I had the time off from work. My wife also had to take some additional time off after starting her new job, leaving us broker.
And then last year, because of the stroke I wasn't able to do as much renovation work as I had planned on the house, son needed to hire people. We also got the kitchen renovated, so were both busy and very broke.
The renovation is self-inflicted reasons and were chosen complications that got in the way of a proper summer holiday. It is the health issues that have really made the impact and for a few years, it felt like all we were doing was surviving physically, mentally and financially. While we are "broke adjacent" we aren't in nearly as bad shape as we were and after everything, it has felt good to have the time off to be a family, without being constantly surrounded by "must do" tasks.
And I think that this is why it feels so hard to go back next week, because it feels like a rubber band snapping back into the other direction. We have poured so much of ourselves into survival in one thing or another, including our physical lives, that we have been holding our breath to push through. Now we have had a chance to breathe, we don't want to go back into that vacuum. Though perhaps, from now on, it might feel different.
And, there is always next year to look forward to, right?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
