newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SALLY FRIEDMAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

LIFESOUNDS

You know the vacation's over when you're standing at a baggage carousel at the airport with a cast of thousands awaiting your luggage that is now one hour later than you arrived arriving on terra firma.

You know it's over when those tropical breezes and rum drinks being distributed at an Olympic-sized pool have been replaced by airport water fountains with gum stuck in the drain.

And you can bet that you're no longer "on holiday," as the British say, at the moment when the luggage does arrive, and your relatively new suitcase has a gash in it for which nobody seems willing to accept responsibility. The damage "hearing" delays your weary bones yet another hour.

My husband and I are cases in point. Or more correctly, wrecks in point.

On the morning after our late flight home, I grope around for my coffee, realizing that there is no one who is about to serve it to me at an open-air restaurant where riotously colored fresh flowers adorn every table. Nor are there warm rolls and breads nestled in a basket. And you can be sure no one is urging me to try the cheese omelet ...

Instead, there is a couple seemingly lost in their own space, a couple out of practice in coping with everyday things like breakfast and dishes and crumbs and phones ringing, invariably with annoying news you don't really want to hear.

Back in Puerto Rico, on our four-day indulgence in off-season (who cared?) life was very different. At the Dorado Beach on Puerto Rico's north coast, a tropical bird sang outside our window each morning, and the first thing we saw when we opened our shutters was a blue ocean, complete with crashing waves.

The grounds we walked were spectacular because the resort, once owned by a Rockefeller, had made an historic commitment to preservation. At this stage of our lives, my husband and I try to think "green" in our travels, so we loved it that the oldest building on the property, dating back to the early 20th century, will never be re-stuccoed because it would then lose its authenticity.

We were definitely in the right place for escape from the frenzy. Not for everyone, perhaps, these older buildings and focus on the casual.

But in this pristine, low-key place we were quickly reminded that vacations are for looking out at blue seas and for dreaming impossible dreams, which we did a lot of.

They are for forgetting dental appointments and deadlines, the funny noise the car is making and the mysterious leak in the upstairs shower.

Falling asleep on a deserted beach with a book on your lap as the sun sinks is more like it.

Ditto for ordering an exotic dish that you'd never order at home, and wearing something that is ever so slightly out-of-character because no one knows you here.

Vacations – even four-day ones – are for reminding yourself that the world will turn without you, and that e-mails and phone messages are not necessarily what make life sweet.

Yes, there is the inevitable letting go of the vacation mode, the saying goodbye to the guy behind the front desk who saw to it that we got the room with a view, and to the sweetheart who lent us a golf cart to get to a distant restaurant on the resort grounds.

All of that somehow gives sorting the post-vacation mountains of laundry and returning the phone machine messages a jaunty air. Eating a spoonful of peanut butter right from the jar – downright refreshing.

And always, always, that first night of sleep in a bed that knows the contours of your weary body – wonderful!

So yes, the vacation is over. Real life is waiting.

For better and for worse.

Sally Friedman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Moorestown, and longtime contributor to local, regional and national publications. The mother of three has seven grandchildren and is the wife of retired New Jersey Superior Court judge Victor Friedman. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .