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Diary of a Homebody On Vacation
The Final Day of My Family Vacation
My name is Cliff J., and I’m a Homebody. A Homebody is “a person who likes to stay at home, especially one who is perceived as unadventurous.”
It’s day seven, our last day of a beautiful family vacation. A short diary-like story follows about what being far from home feels like to a Homebody.
It’s just after sunrise on a cloudy day. I’m sitting in the corner of a vastly overpriced hotel room 500 feet from the Pacific Ocean on the island of Maui. It’s the first time I’ve been to Hawaii. We are on a family vacation. The trip is at the top of my wife’s bucket list. I am thrilled to be here with my family despite my preference for being home, in the flow of a routine that has evolved over the last 62.8 years.
Big-ass, long, expensive vacations have been against my religion since I was a child. You might feel the same if your parents jammed you and your two siblings into the family station wagon and drove you from New Hampshire to Florida for “Spring vacations.” Those trips would take three days to drive each way. We would stay for four nights and drive home. By the time we got home, everyone was exhausted. Mom and Dad were generally fighting.
Shrinks might call my view of family vacations a “conditioned aversion.” But don’t get me…
