Leaving Caribbean Paradise: 5 Signs You’ve Had A Good Vacation

My family and I just returned from paradise, a little island called Vieques off of Puerto Rico where the sand is white, the water is unbelievably turquoise, and free range horses wander through your yard at dusk. There is no McDonalds. There is no movie theater. No casinos or fancy hotels or tourist souvenir stores.

There is only sand and sun, iguanas and horses, fish caught an hour ago at the little pescaria, coconut palms and papaya trees.

Plus, some business about a storm called Isaac, but all it did was make the surf more exciting, cut off all travel to and from the island, and block phone and internet signals.

In other words, we were completely disconnected from civilization.

It was heavenly.

The whole experience had the effect of pushing the reset button on our brains. From personal experience, here is how to tell you’ve had a fantastic vacation:

1) You cannot remember your work email password. You are not sad about this.

2) You write for a living, but when You sit down to write aain, you can’t remember how. The Ideas are there- boy are they there – but you forget basic capitalization and how to spell “again.”

3) You head to your usual grocery store, make a wrong turn, end up at CVS. You have to stop the car and think about how to get back. You know exactly how to get from your island rental to the beach, but your own home is foreign territory.

4) You find sand in your camera case, your toothbrush, and places on your body you didn’t think sand could really go. You don’t mind.

5) Your son repeatedly asks for you to sell your house and move to the island. You consider it enough to actually run the numbers.

Maybe someday.