DECOMPRESSION

DECOMPRESSION

It took me two days to realize what I was doing – decompressing from vacation.

I had watched a movie, “Last Breath” starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu, on the return flight from vacation. It is storyline of a group of saturation divers who are dispatched to repair underwater pipelines that transport crude oil. It is a true story and worth watching. Two things remained with me after watching: It had never crossed my mind that underwater pipelines needed maintaining and that someone had to do it. And divers spend a significant amount of time in pressurized compression chambers before dives and afterwards to avoid decompression sickness. Upon the completion of a dive, they spent four days decompressing. Sometimes on day one of being home I had a moment of illumination – I was doing a decompression from vacation so that I could more easily move back into my routine. Vacation is sort of like diving to repair the pipelines that supply me with the energy for life daily. Thankfully, I had the time to decompress and reacclimate myself for the reality show called life.

On the second day of decompression, I worked out – the first in two weeks. Arriving home after the class, the morning’s beauty demanded a thirty-minute walk from me. I walked the neighborhood and finished the time outside with ninety minutes of yard work.

Everything, starting with getting out of bed at three AM (jet lag is real) until I picked up a pen to write on the afternoon of the second day, could be described as an act of decompression (letting gradual pressure out after activity).

Of course, vacation should be a decompression and three days into it, it was. I find preparation, travelling from and back home by any mode stressful. Additionally, vacation highjacks my focus and discipline and stores it in an unknown trash receptacle. Decompressing allows me to gently retrieve both.

People always ask, “was vacation fun?” It can be but very few people ask, “how is life better for having taken a vacation?” They assume you are. During decompression and the gradual return to my routine, I had some luminous moments. The return to the exercise class, renewed and invigorated, illustrated just how hard I had driven my body without proper rest prior to going away. The walk reacquainted me with the beauty and quietness of the neighborhood.

After pruning plants and pulling weeds, I stopped to take it all in. Standing motionless in the backyard as the butterflies danced upon the zinnias, I was re-awakened to the beauty of my ecosystem. The unfurled gigantic green banana leaves waved in the morning breeze welcoming me home. The banana pepper plant gifted me the third and largest harvest of the season. The baby watermelons that I had carefully watched before leaving had been eaten by the deer. But tucked away in a corner out of the hungry deer’s sight and mine were larger ones. I felt washed clean of vacation and ready to re-engage day to day living. By the end of the morning, I felt reacclimated and ready to sit with pen and paper. You are reading the first product of decompression.

1 Peter 5: 6-7

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Decompress before starting again.