Vacationing

Long ago, in the times before fatherhood and marriage, I used to absolutely love having vacations. I am hopelessly addicted to programming, and a vacation meant that I could immerse myself into hobby coding pretty much 24/7 without any distractions. I had all the time in the world. It was blissful.

Nowadays I'm lucky to get a couple of hours here and there. Christmas is particularly challenging because the daycare is also on a break. My son gets to have a little vacation, too, but this means he needs constant supervision at home. This must sound familiar to parents of small children.

The global pandemic is an incredible monkey wrench; visits to the grandparents are off the table and any sort of outside help is at least questionable if not outright unfeasible.

Well, tough. Being a parent isn't easy even in normal times. Vacationing still has its charms, although after a while it starts to feel like a slow zombie crawl through the fog of exhaustion. A haphazardly decorated Christmas tree standing in the corner of the living room reminds me every now and then that it is indeed the end of December 2020.

But I count myself lucky — our little family is fantastic, and things could be so much worse. I just wistfully long for the days without obligations when I was free to roam the digital realm and create anything I could imagine.

skyjake

📅 2020-12-29

🏷 Life

🏷 Programming

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