This year started fantastically with a wonderful vacation along with my sister's family on which we celebrated my beloved mother's 80th birthday. Unfortunately, even then Mom's health showed obvious signs of decline which I chose to ignore. Always a vivacious, active woman who enjoyed long walks, debilitating pain had limited her ability to do even a fraction of what she had been capable only a year earlier. She spoke with concern that her thought process, normally razor sharp, had slowed, which in retrospect was a sign of restricted blood flow.
Within two short months of our wonderful celebration, my mother had passed to heaven, and I have no doubt angels and loved ones who previously made their transition met her with open arms. The intense pain all of us felt was for our loss of this bright light's presence. I consoled myself knowing she was in a better place where all of her age-related infirmities had been left behind.
We tried to make her funeral a celebration of her life, but of course there were many tears, both public and private which could not be held back. Nonetheless, life goes on, and I know the last thing my mom would want would be for any of us to fail to get on with our lives. Fortunately for me, I am married to another great woman, and as someone who loves to travel even more than me, she already had insisted we have future trips booked before my mother's health began requiring frequent doctor visits which eventually ended in her death. 
When Spring Break rolled around, we went on our Mexican Riviera cruise as originally planned the previous summer, and getting back to the vacation mindset, surrounded by friendly strangers, exploring less familiar locales, and taking exciting excursions, we were able to re-set our minds to live the way Mom would have wanted us to live.
I'm sure you have personal dramas similar to my own, but recently we have all lived under a shared cloud of depression, as politicians managed to seemingly drive our country to the edge of an abyss. We look at declining home values, read about foreclosures, watch our 401Ks and IRAs lose value, hear that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and, inevitably, come to the conclusion that these are the worst of times. They are. But they are, as Charles Dickens said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” also the best of times. You decide.
While we all have the inherent right to choose how we interpret the world, it is much easier to see the best of times when we surround ourselves in a positive environment for a few uninterrupted days. That's why, in this technological age where your problems seem to follow you around all of your busy day, vacations for most of us are not simply pleasant diversions but necessary mental health therapy. If you can't find a way to afford a vacation, then take a walk along the beach or through a park. Take time to enjoy a meal with your family, and just look around at the wonders of life with the eyes of a child. 
As easy as that sounds, I must reiterate that the escape of a vacation makes it all much easier. Long before the current economic malaise enveloped the space/time continuum, my sage wife had already planned for us to go away over Thanksgiving week, taking advantage of my youngest daughter's school break for the entire week. Yes, we missed the traditional Thanksgiving celebration with family this year, and I must confess thinking about that several times on the trip, but the overall attitude adjustment we found during our week away has given us the perspective we needed to see the world anew once again. This time, our cruise was to the Mediterranean aboard the amazing Voyager of the Seas, and of course I look forward to reliving our adventures as I share some photos and memories of our trip over the next few days.
Perhaps you already have a trip planned for the spring or summer, and that's terrific. That gives you something to think about and discuss right now, providing treats before the actual escape. However, wouldn't you really like to completely re-set your attitude even sooner? There's still time for a consciousness altering vacation before the end of the year, and there are some amazing deals right now, even for cruises over Christmas vacation. You will never find better pricing for a two week cruise in South America or Australia. You may have been waiting for the price to be right for a dream vacation. Don't look back in six months and lament the fact that you failed to act to take advantage of the best of times for vacation values because you thought it was the worst of times. 
