Refreshed

6 days. 5 nights.

Runs on the beach. Walks through town. Sunsets. 2 amazing yoga classes in a top floor, open-air, palapa-covered, traffic-noise-filled studio (so very Mexican, no?). Sleep! So much sleep.

I am rested, tan, and not burnt. I am slightly fat and very happy. I ate more chips and more corn tortillas than I can count. I believe we ordered at least 5 preparations of guacamole. Plus there were copious preparations of pulpo and other seafood, most of which was the heavily garlic'd type. Amazing food from $2.50 authentic meals to $60 meals that easily rival $150 meals at home (and we don't have the views!).

And let us not forget that my phone gets no emails in Zihua. The work email technology, well, it does not work so well there.

But margaritas? And laying by the pool? And reading? And sleeping on the balcony? All of these, why, yes! Of course! They work quite well.

Finally, I'd like to note that I needed this vacation more than I realized. I assume that my stress levels were approximately at or below "normal for a first-year associate" upon departure. The severe sense of decompression actually brought me to tears in the airport as I was sending my last follow-up emails about work and simultaneously about to board a plane to escape it all. I, like just about any reasonable human struggling to find myself and prove myself in a new career, *really* needed a vacation.

So, my advice to any of you lawyers would be: if you are grumpy, schedule a 6 day vacation over a weekend (or better yet, a long weekend). You'll miss 4 actual days of work but the 6 day hiatus from all work will feel like you've won the lottery. You can actually walk away from it all and it will be fine. There are so many things for which you should be grateful that you have forgotten to appreciate.

There are so many things you want that you can actually just go have for 6 days and then the want subsides...it turns out, you really can only sleep, eat, drink, relax, and work out for so many days before it starts to lose the glamour. Work sounds so fun now. So, of course, does adventure travel, and finally learning Spanish, and all sorts of other adventures. But that's not the point.

The point is, I was tired. So I rested. And by the end of 6 days I was tired of resting. A little perspective goes a long way.