It has been nearly 15 years since my wife Katie and I took a vacation without our children. A week in Portland. A weekend on the North Shore. Those trips happened a million lifetimes ago.
I have decided, here in the year of our Lord 2026, that I very much want to take a vacation. Need to take a vacation.
Reality is heavy. I want to vacate it. A week on a beach. A spa day that turns into more spa days. A lazy afternoon by a pool. Nowhere to be and nothing to do.
***
I’ve been promoted to full professor. I finished the Big Ten Academic Alliance Leadership Program this year. My career feels like it is shifting. My wife Katie and I have fifteen years of marriage under our belt. These things feel worthy of celebration.
It took some convincing to get Katie on board with a childfree vacation. Katie likes to be with our children. I do too. But vacating reality means some time away from parenting.
Katie’s cousin was willing to watch our children for a long weekend this summer. Solomon and Samson have a great relationship with their cousins. With our children taken care of, I was free to book a trip.
I cycled through ideas. A weekend on the beach in South Carolina. A trip to Burlington. Some time in the mountains of Colorado. A spa in Wisconsin. The North Shore. All of these destinations seemed like good places to leave reality behind. I refreshed my browser. AirBNB offered options. Delta gave me quotes. But I didn’t book. December turned into May, and I still have no idea where to go with Katie to celebrate this moment with a brief respite from reality.
Respite from reality is a poetic phrase.
***
I’m looking forward to a vacation. I should probably take more vacations. With my wife, with my kids, and even with myself. It’s okay to explore other worlds.
It’s easy to become too fixated on any one of our many worlds. Work is a loud world. The news is a loud world. Parenting is loud world. Sometimes it is okay to sit on a beach and explore quiet worlds, too.
So I will seek out a beach. Or a spa. Or a quiet cabin in the woods and look for other worlds. Maybe I’m not vacating reality, so much as entering into different realities.
Trippy, huh?
Samuel Jaye Tanner 