Just the simple definition makes my soul take wing. I’m not sure what it is in mankind that makes us feel the need to “escape” our everyday lives and relocate for a week or two to unwind, but we need it. We become different people when we vacation.

Things that normally would be out of character like going to the grocery in nothing but a bathing suit and cover up, going all day without makeup or combing our hair, seem second nature when your nomadic instincts take over and you pick up and move yourself to another locale. Suddenly we’re cool, calm and collected. Nothing bothers us, we are indifferent to the rules of regular society, we are first and foremost, “on holiday”.

We play cards into the wee hours on screened in porches, drink frozen drinks, wear mosquito repellent like second skin, let kids stay up late and we say yes to just about anything they ask for. We feel like royalty in our flip flops and terry cloth and we wear our crisp, fresh, sunburns like regal robes of glory. For this brief respite, it’s as if we’re giving the world “the bird” and declaring we won’t be there on Monday.

I can remember just about every vacation we ever took as a family when I was young. Always in the heat of the Summer and most were taken in a car without air conditioning or leg room. Four door cars with “stick-to-your-legs-pleather” and I still feel the burn of a seatbelt clasp searing a brand onto my leg after it baked in the sun. It was close quarters for five but we managed. With my sisters, 9 and 11 years older than I was, they should count themselves lucky it wasn’t until I was older that I became a member of the overweight club.

I don’t know how we made it to Florida in a car with no air conditioning without killing each other, but we did. The entire trip was never without incident, I recall a few parental arms reaching over the front bench seat and swatting the unlucky leg that got in the way while traveling in our 75 mph, 400 degree wind tunnel.

But actually, maybe that is why the arrival was so sweet. When finally reaching our destination, sunburned on one arm from riding with the window down and starving for some type of food that wasn’t a pecan log from Stuckey’s, we felt blessed. For some reason, my father thought pecan logs were vacation candy. He would go in and promise candy but emerge with a pecan log that none of us cared for. So he would graciously eat as if he were doing us a favor. This coming from the man that told us when we were young that eating in the car was against the law. For years I couldn’t understand why there weren’t more people being arrested as they drove around with their Pepsi bottles proudly displayed. However, he was genius, he never had a dirty car. My car is littered with petrified french fries, juice boxes and granola bar wrappers. But I digress, some of them belong to me.

My father always said if there is one thing to borrow money for, it’s a vacation. House payments, car payments, they will be there when you get back, but vacations are priceless. Even if it’s only to the lake, the next city overnight or a drive to nowhere, we need to escape. We need to be someone other than who we are, if only for a weekend.

It’s good for us, it makes us remember that we are more than just cogs in a wheel, that we are important to one another and that we still know how to communicate and find joy in the simplicity of being together. So this year, if you can, plan that getaway. If it’s only for a day, escape from the reality and live a brief time as a king, a queen and a royal family on holiday. But don’t forget the sunscreen or your regal robe may peel.