When The Only Thing You’ve Looked Forward To For Months Gets Cancelled

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Everybody works for the weekend. Once you reach postgrad life the weekend is what helps you get out of bed every morning, but vacation is what keeps you going day by day. The days of summer and winter break are far behind you, but the few days of PTO and some R&R are in the distance and getting closer. Seeing your paradise so close and work so far away is what gets any postgrad through the grind. Unfortunately, that feeling is why I come to you today an emotional wreck. My vacation was axed by a god damn hurricane.

Now, I’m not a monster. I’m fully aware that others are losing far more to Hurricane Matthew’s wrath. If you feel so inclined, you can donate to children that are victims of the disaster through UNICEF.

So no, I’m not a monster. But I am human, and I have feelings. And every single one of them was crushed the second that I found out my Myrtle Beach golf trip for this weekend had been cancelled due to evacuations. As I type from my desk my gaze continues to fall to my perfectly packed suitcase and golf bag, ready for a plane ride that will never come.

I’d waited for months. This trip had gotten me through tough workdays, sleepless nights, and early mornings. The grind of being in the workforce wears on a person, and there’s no given break in sight; you have to make one for yourself. I had that, and I had it coming soon. No matter what life threw at me there was going to be a condo and five solid days of golf and booze in my future. Until there wasn’t.

Fresh off watching the stars and stripes bring the Ryder Cup home, I was more geared up than ever for my large group trip that we were doing in Ryder Cup format. This weekend I was supposed to be swinging the sticks with my old man and a bunch of buddies. My bag was packed with a couple fresh sets of balls, just waiting to be shot out into water hazards not yet explored. I’d obsessively looked at the courses and the resort for weeks, discussing our upcoming trials and tribulations on the links with my fellow trip goers.

But alas, all that remains of that hope is the suitcase that will eventually have to be unpacked, because I’m pretty sure I put my toothbrush in it somewhere. That hope has been replaced by a longing despair that I’d associate with watching your favorite team get bounced out of the playoffs and leaving their best pitcher in the bullpen.

I won’t be hopping on a plane today. I won’t be reading the book I’d planned on finishing while sipping a cold airplane beer. On Friday, I certainly won’t be sitting in a golf cart enjoying a nice Miller Lite and thinking to myself, “How the fuck did you manage to three-putt that?” Instead, I’ll be making sales calls after being thrown unwillingly back into my work grind.

While I wouldn’t wish this bitter pill on my worst enemy, part of postgrad life is that the grind goes on. You set the alarm and take it one office meeting at a time. While I’m not thrilled that my long-awaited vacation has been replaced by three days of work that I didn’t anticipate having to endure, sometimes you just gotta roll with it. What I’ll keep telling myself, and if you ever find yourself robbed of vacation, you tell yourself this too, is that there will always be another.

Maybe, just maybe, the universe will make it up to me. If nothing else, I’ve still got a golf trip in 2017, and I’ll be damned if I’m not already excited as hell for it.

Also, seriously donate to UNICEF..

Image via Shutterstock

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Kyle Bandujo

The artist formerly known as Crash Davis. My kid doesn't think I'm funny.

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