Post-Vacation Blues

Actually, I never noticed this before, but after a month in paradise, real life seems – well - disappointing. I feel like the classic dipsomaniac who is trying to recover from a month-long bender. The overload of sensory delights, followed by sudden withdrawal, has created a type of post-traumatic stress.

You are probably saying to yourself, other than the air travel experience where is the trauma? Well, my friend don’t you think it’s traumatic to know that you are more than 6,000 miles from Paradise? Who knows, maybe shrinks have a syndrome that describes the feeling (post-euphoric-stress?) that betakes people and imprisons them in a back-to-earth funk.

Or, maybe these blues are the natural reaction of a fixed-income retiree - who may, or may not, live another 20 years (God only knows) and who must subsist on the meager dole from Unka Sam - plus anticipated interest from investments in a volatile economy. Gas is going up, the value of my mansion is going down, my chances to find part time work are diminished and (according to spammer e-mails) my love-muscle is too disappointingly soft. I planted a dozen marigolds three days ago. Some varmint has beheaded 8 of them. I mowed the lawn last week and here it is again looking shaggy. I search for seeds of hope, but crows have eaten them.

This morning it occurred to me that life is like a job. God is the boss, and even he has a manual to tell you what to do, and especially how to feed his big ego. You need to show up every day and try to look good. A few basic rules: Be nice to others (unless you are serving in the military) and stop dreaming about shtupping the neighbor’s wife/donkey. I can go along with that. It’s the requisite level of ego gratification that troubles me. Kneeling, chanting, supplication. And the performance review…pretty intimidating.

Ah, perhaps I will find cause to Hope in the morning paper: Oprah is going on a 21 day vegan detox diet. Like that will somehow make her eternally thin. We all know that when you are fat, you will always be fat until you get sick and die. Diets are God’s way of making you stop eating the stuff you like for a few months. It’s like the boss - jerking you around for entertainment.

And here: Annotated color graphic of Ted Kennedy’s inoperable brain tumor spoils my breakfast. The suddenness of this dark diagnosis stuns us all – even the pundati on the radio who love to hate him. He looks thinner already.

Then there are the Hurricanes and tornadoes and Earthquakes. We are once again reminded of human impotence. Natural forces and perhaps even supernatural powers hold sway over us, sneak up on us, and devastate us. Some people call this type of universal suffering “God’s will.” Such thinking cannot help but depress us. What kind of eternity are we in for, if our God thinks it’s a good idea to devastate our lives to prove his existence?