Feb 3, 2023 4 min read

Five-point-seven weeks. That’s what the calculator on my phone showed me when I punched in the numbers our human relations director sent in an email.

“As of January 1, you have 229 vacation hours available.”

And so I divided that by eight and came up with 28.6 days and then divided that by 5.

The news came shiny and happy from the dark screen of my phone. I could take a whole month of vacation, and still have another week hanging out there to use.

Not since my children were young and I wasn’t working outside of the home have I been greeted with the thought of so much free time. Early in my career, when I was working long weeks in television news, I’d strategically schedule my paid days off for a couple of getaways each year. A honeymoon used up one of the weeks, and a beach getaway would consume the others. Never would I hoard time for longer breaks; maybe I was afraid of missing something back at the office.

But geez, five weeks. That’s long enough to ride the entire Katy bike trail through the midwest and back again. Enough time to fly to Hawaii to work for one of those farm co-ops. Long enough to sit on a beach somewhere and read the stacks of books on my living room floor.

“We should go somewhere,” I sent in a email to the four girlfriends with whom I’ve traveled. They all responded, yes! But only for a few days away.

This is how retirement will feel – sitting here looking at an expanse of empty calendar blocks. How shall I fill them?

I’m in the final production of a new documentary for WQED. After it airs in a couple of weeks, an interesting new project will land on my desk and I’ll be energized by that, and won’t want to leave town, or shut off that creative part of my brain. I like my job, and except in these winter weeks when I’m helping to schlep camera gear across icy sidewalks and yards, it’s a great gig. The best I’ve had. I’m always thinking about how to tell the next story.

But maybe that vacation notice is more than an invitation, but also a reminder that I need to take some time off. I haven’t been away in years – not truly away with my mind and my phone and email shut down. Although I don’t consider myself a workaholic, I do like to work and I don’t daydream about not doing it. And I’m single, so there’s not been a partner to nudge me to get away.

With one child on the west coast and the other headed to upstate New York soon, I have places to go and people to see. If I take a week for son and a week for daughter, that’s half a month. Then a long trail ride would be another week. Then a half a week to rest my legs, and I’ve gobbled up three-and-a-half weeks. And half a week reading by a lake somewhere sounds right. I’ll be asking my friends to join me for any or all of this.

If I add a couple of personal days to my bank, I could take a full six weeks off from work this year. That’s half a summer. Or most of a cold winter. I don’t have to use all the time this year. I could use a bit of it and then roll the rest into next year, and wander away for two whole months.

Imagine the sunny possibilities of that.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.