Career Smacks

“Smoothie of the day?” said the male voice.  I looked up from my chaise in the shaded cabana, romance novel in one hand.  “Of course!” I replied.   Hubby and I looked at each other and sighed.  Every hour, on the hour, a uniformed cabana host came around the pool offering guests a variety of treats.  They even offered to clean our sunglasses.

Yes, Hubby and I live a luxurious life.

On vacation, that is.

Each summer we spend a week in a luxurious parallel universe, one that allows us to pretend that we are “somebody”; one in which we are waited on hand and foot.

Many wonder why we do this.  We wonder why others don’t do this.

Our philosophy? If we can’t live this way year ‘round, we can certainly live this way for one glorious week.

And really, why not? We work hard. We usually take only one vacation a year.  So it had better be good.

Similar to waiting for Christmas when we were kids, Hubby and I wait for this trip all year. Literally. Less than 48 hours after arriving home and we already start planning for next year.

Arriving at the resort is ecstasy and departing is pure anguish; sometimes downright embarrassing. I “might” have shed a tear or two.  Okay, I openly sobbed as Hubby tried to pry my fingers off of the chaise as the sun disappeared over the horizon our last day.

No matter how long we stay it’s never enough.  Perhaps we need to re-think our at-home relaxation strategy so we are not upset at leaving?

Yet we know that at some point we must return home, back to the “real world”.

This time, we tried to prepare for re-entry.  We talked about a couple weekend trips planned for the fall.

Hubby and I swore on our pool-side smoothies that we would book one of our every-other-year “adventure” vacations.  We even pinky-swore that we would return to our favorite luxury resort for a long weekend this winter.

We departed feeling a bit better and less disappointed about returning home to our responsibilities.

As we deplaned we joked about the “re-entry” time, saying it doesn’t take long to get back to reality.

Folks, it takes exactly twenty-seven minutes.  That’s scientific.  It was the amount of time it took to deplane, get our bags, find our car and realize that we had a dead battery.

Nothing like the sound of “click-click-click” coming from the engine at 9:30 pm in a dark parking garage.

Sigh.

Smack!  That was the sound of reality, hitting us hard.  We tried to put on a brave face.  We tried to laugh at this sudden turn of events.  I tried not to cry.  We both tried
not to sweat in the hot parking garage.

Life is like that.  We plan, we prepare and even with our best intentions we can still get smacked in the face.

Yet this time was different.  Somehow both Hubby and I were able to keep the dead battery incident in perspective.

Instead of crying, I looked at Hubby and we both started to laugh. Seeing the humor, I immediately posted on social media about our “re-entry” debacle.

As luck would have it, a good friend saw my post and came to our rescue with cold water and jumper cables.

Just like that, we were back on track.

Similarly, at some point our career will smack us in the face.  It could be the promotion that got away, or an unexpected department shuffle, or something as serious as a job loss.  We can’t control it.  But we can control how we react to these “career smacks”.

Plan what you can, such as maintaining an up-to-date resume.  If your career does smack you, try to put things in perspective.  Reach out to your contacts for help.  You never know who might be available.

As for Hubby and me, one dead battery was no match for us.  We are already planning another trip.  And next time we’ll have a spare battery in the car, just in case.