Back To The Grind

Vacations are never long enough. It's Monday morning and I'm heading to work. Inching along in traffic, its back to the grind. I'm not thrilled at the prospect walking into the office and looking in my box to see nothing. Winter is usually a quiet time for me. It's either feast or famine when it comes to work. I enter the building and I see some of my co-workers who ask how the vacation was. I said the fishing was great and I wished I had another week. They nod in agreement. I look at the calender and sigh, next November seems so far away. 

The vacation was needed as the grind of a busy season wore me out. The last time I took vacation was in early April and you guessed it, I was out fishing. I couldn't bare the thought of taking time off during the summer. That's the time to make as much money as possible. Those huge bonuses and overtime, fueled me to go all out. I had all winter to kick back and relax. 

I look at the schedule and there's odd jobs for the week, enough to get me out of the office. But for the time being I sit a chair back in the break room and drink my coffee. I have a couple hours to kill before I head out to my first job. I start to reminisce about the week I had off. The entire week hitting different streams along the Alley. Even though it was my vacation week, I still got up early. I drove in the dark on my way out east. I wanted to be on the trail at first light. I wasn't going to dick around. I had a plan on where to fish. Since I was single, I was going to fish until I either ran out of bait or light. It was like that nearly every day. 

Unfortunately when you're on the streams all day, time flies. Before you know it, it's Friday and there's two more days before the fun times are over. There are times I wished I could retire early like my father or win the lottery. I spend nearly every waking moment on the streams. One of the guys we fished with just retired from GM and that was last we saw of him. I don't blame him, why would I want to fish on the weekend with the hoards? He had the rest of life to get out and fish. As I'm sitting finishing off my coffee, I wouldn't be surprised if he's down at the Rock fishing alone. I feel a ting of envy thinking about it. I cherish the one week I had. If I make it to ten years at the company, I'll get another week of vacation and that's eight years away. 

Hopefully I can make it to ten years, because another week off would help make the grind that more easy.