Paradise is a Lie

I once read in a book that if you’re feeling like you need a vacation, you should try building a life that you don’t need a vacation from. When I read those words for the first time, I stopped and pondered for a moment what that life might look like. Then I went about my life, off to work, on to the next book. It wasn’t long before those words were lost in a life full of busy. But while on vacation in a place many would call Paradise, those words returned. Sitting on the beach in Maui, Hawaii, watching my children run from the waves as they met the narrow shore, much like they had done for years up and down the coast of California and Southern Oregon, I marveled as they realized that there was no reason to run. This ocean, the same ocean they had danced with so many times, wasn’t going to leave their feet numb from the cold, this ocean was inviting them in for a swim. It is hard to explain how the same ocean can both chill you the the bone, and then wrap you in her warmth. Just like it is hard to explain how those words first allowed me to pause for a moment to consider what a life free from the desire to escape would look like, then rebuffed me on that beach, and have haunted me ever since. They climbed into my luggage like a stowaway on every trip I have taken since I read them, forcing me to pull them out and carry them with me to the beach and the day spa, the snowy mountains of Lake Tahoe, California, and to the hot jungles of Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. Sitting on the balcony of my cabin aboard the Discovery Princess, watching the moonlight reflecting on the ever-moving ocean like something out of a painting, I finally asked myself the question, What is a vacation? My notes in that moment were exactly this, a copy and paste from my writings that night:

Relaxing. The absence of chores. The slowing down of time. Connecting. Escape from reality. Escape from work. An excuse to not answer the phone, to respond to an email – an excuse to not work. Allowing others to care for my needs.  Vacating the place in my office for the place in my home. Turning off people-pleasing to please myself. Vacation is time. Vacation is memories. Vacation is planning, looking forward to.

As I got done writing that, the snarky voice in my head was quick to respond. So, if I am desiring to create a life that I don’t need a vacation from, I need to hire a live-in maid, get a massage at least once per week, quit my job, throw my cell phone into the sea, cancel my email accounts, hire a butler and a personal chef, stop the clock and be ever-present in my home. Well that sounds realistic.

I shut my laptop off and went to bed. I had answered the question, that was enough for this vacation. I would deal with the fallout from answering when I returned to dry land.

My husband and I returned from our first cruise to the Mexican Riviera, and our first time being away from our teenage children together for longer than a few nights, and the first night we were home, I escaped to my newly-remodeled bathroom and tossed a bath bomb into the hot water. My first thought? “I need a vacation.” What!? You need a vacation? You just got back from a vacation! You’re ridiculous.

And I was forced to unpack those words from my suitcase before I unpacked anything else. Why don’t you build a life that you don’t need a vacation from? How could I be gone with the man of my dreams, gone from work, gone from all responsibility, with my cell phone turned off, never lifting a finger to cook or clean for more than a week, and I still feel like I need a vacation? Ugh.

While I sat in the silence in the bath that night, my body still feeling the motion of the waves, it hit me. I didn’t need a vacation. I needed some time alone. I needed a time-out, grown up style. I needed to let the silence envelop me like those waves on the shore of Maui, and carry me out to the middle of nowhere, where the only thing you can hear is the rhythmic crashing of the waves, or my own heart beat. And then…I needed to figure out how to start building this life that I didn’t need to run from. Maybe I needed to figure out what I was running from.

I feel like something has shifted and I cannot see the world as I once did. Hawaii was supposed to be life-changing, but I returned feeling meh. Cabo San Lucas was supposed to be exotic and serene, like the canvas print on my office wall, with its beautiful rock arches and crystal clear waters. Except it was loud and dirty, and its waters were murky. I watched a young man on a catamaran in Puerta Vallarta go from gloomy, irritated with his parents, to dancing with a beer in one hand, cell phone in the other in a matter of moments. He acted out the life his peers expected of him, even though there was nothing genuine about it. I saw a couple pose for photos on the beaches of Mahajuitas Cove like it was the most romantic place on the planet, meanwhile there were hundreds of tourists behind them begging their tour boats to pick them up and take them off of that crowded shore. Tour guides attempted to give you the experience that they thought you wanted, failing to show you anything authentic or inviting about the culture that you came to immerse yourself in. The resorts in these Paradises are nothing like the places that they are built in. There is a pretty clear boundary line between the tourist areas and the real areas of those places, a line that you probably don’t want to cross without a tour guide and a clearly marked vessel.

While visiting the remote village of Yelapa, I was overwhelmed with sadness for the fifteen hundred people who call this place home. Not because they were impoverished, or because they lived in a village that you could only get to by boat, but because they were being invaded by boats full of tourists regularly, with no gain. The brochure stated that we would “hike through the jungle to the Cola de Caballo waterfalls”, which was the major appeal for this particular excursion. When we arrived, there was an unpleasant odor lingering in the air. The hike was a 5 minute uphill walk through the village on a path lined with merchants selling junk souvenirs, telling the tourists it was time to contribute to their economy. I didn’t look up much, as I was trying to avoid the piles of fresh dog poop scattered along the rocky road. We got to the top of the hill and there was a beautiful waterfall, pouring into a small pool, then cascading down over a rocky valley and down into the village. I had been planning to swim in the pool, but the stray dogs that hovered on the rocks and the huge crowd of people trying to get the perfect photo turned me away.

Those photos were lies. This place was a lie. The brochure was a lie.

Maybe Paradise is a lie.

It made me sad that this village had a natural treasure, and rather than clean the pathway, or sell some unique craft that was a part of their culture, they failed to maintain the gift that nature had given them, and rather than being the best part of our trip, it became, as my husband stated, the only time he felt uneasy in Mexico. Rather than investing in the gift that God had given them, they invested in trinkets that no one wanted, and people couldn’t wait to get out of their village. As we boarded our catamaran and pulled out of the cove, I considered the question, how am I maintaining the treasure I have been gifted in this life?

I sat in the bath that first night home for two hours, knowing that once I went to bed, the vacation was over, and reality would be waiting for me like a Monday morning. I allowed the silence to tell the truths that I needed to hear. Hard truths about the busy life I was living, about the way I had been failing to care for myself, and the fact that if I wanted to begin to build that vacation-free life, I was going to have to be intentional, accountable, and I was going to have to make some major changes. The next day, I left the house without my cell phone – on purpose. It was a small thing, but let me ask you…when is the last time you did that?

While I still have not defined the life that doesn’t leave me wanting a vacation, I have begun to carve out the time to explore the idea. That time I needed alone, it is on the calendar and the reservation is made. How do you slow down time in a world that moves so quickly? Is it possible to live authentically in a culture that misrepresents reality on social media every day, often to impress people they don’t even like? How do I turn chores into routines that I look forward to? Do people really find time to take care of themselves, to assess their physical and mental well-being and make minor changes before things spiral into chaos? In his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss boasts about checking his email once per week – is that even possible?

I remember standing on the stage at my high school graduation, giving a speech before receiving a small scholarship. One of my favorite parts of that speech went like this: On the path to the life I’ve created for me. Here I am, twenty five years later, still trying to carve out that path.