Downtime

We have been in Argentina for about 20 days now, and I've come to really value the concept of "downtime."  Dr. and I talked extensively about this when we were planning our trip, but especially after living in the land of the "siesta" I have now come to appreciate and embrace it.

I struggled with downtime when I was employed, as I often knew I needed a mental break, but I hated feeling unproductive (Dr.'s note - ha ha somehow I never struggled with feeling unproductive during downtime. I'm kind of an expert at unproductive downtime).  Even if it wasn't work, I felt obligated to "work" on other things like staying connected with friends and family, laundry, cleaning house, etc.

Now that we're retired world travelers (I say that a little tongue in cheek), I've come to greatly value brain candy time.  This is the "do nothing" time where we aren't planning our next outing, or working out logistics for our next location.  Junking out of YouTube, reading a book, sitting in the sunshine, people watching at a cafe. Glass of wine at 2pm?  Done.  Watch a video about how to take better photos?  Absolutely.  Read one of the many books I intend to get to?  Game on!

Often these are also the times when I'm most inspired to pen our blog posts.  It gives me time to reflect on what we've done, build excitement around what the future holds, and also simply live in the moment.

Downtime should be a mandatory part of any balanced lifestyle.  For us, this is the time we get to feel "normal" again.  Traveling is an amazing experience, but it can be draining trying to immerse yourself in a foreign country attempting to speak and understand a foreign language all day long (Dr.'s note - the language part of my brain gets scrambled way too easily. For example, I'll accidentally say "sorry" in French instead of Spanish, leaving everyone - especially myself - scratching their heads in confusion). We have conversations exclusively in English, we watch English speaking programming and read English publications.  As we rely heavily on each other in our day-to-day adventures, downtime also serves as a time when we can be independent and do whatever it is that we are feeling in the moment.

Dr.'s brain

While I knew that I needed more quality downtime in my employed life, it was always difficult to achieve, or at least to appreciate.  Now, downtime feels great and deserved, and has become incredibly valuable instead of simply shifting my worry from work to home.  Hopefully you all will have some excellent downtime in the coming days as well!