______Break______

More often than not you realize that you need a vacation when it's too late; once you're over-worked and drained from the humdrum that can be life. More often than not this is my experience, and while I wasn't planning on a vacation per se, I found one in visiting my home state of Florida for a week. 

While I was there for official bridesmaid duties, I made the time throughout the week to visit friends and family, in particular my grandparents in Brooksville, FL. Visiting my grandparents is always a treat for me, given that now that I'm an adult who lives across the country, I seldom see my grandparents. But visiting this time around was different.

At 24 years old I not only feel as if it's natural for me to be connected to everything around me (via email, social media, text message) but I also feel as if I am required to stay connected to everything around me. And while the thought of this doesn't seem so arduous with technology, it isn't until you step out of all communication and connectivity that you realize how mentally exhausted you are because of it (at least this was my experience).

So visiting my grandparents for a couple days, with no WiFi or cell phone reception, was a literal break from my normal day-to-day routine (and what I would imagine mostly everyone's day-to-day routine is in 2018). A cold turkey break. Being in Brooksville was an environmental break too - I went from a ramen shop and juice bar being walking distance of my digs to the nearest grocery store being 30-40 minutes away. While I would attribute myself as a city girl, the break in scenery was refreshing.

Lastly, and probably most importantly in my point of view, being in Brooksville was a break from perspective. Whenever I visit my grandparents in Brooksville, I'm not only the aspiring law student who has a full-time job, student loans, and other such bills and obligations; I am a 10-year old girl, who's biggest care in the world is to find the longest stick imaginable to use against my sister in our ninja battle; I am a 12-year old girl who's training (very lax I might add) for a triathlon by running endless laps around my grandparent's small (think mobile home, but not a mobile home) house; I am a girl who's getting devoured by mosquitoes but she doesn't even care because her grandpa is grilling anticuchos (an-tee-coo-choes), corn, and all the fixins' outside and she's not gonna miss any of that action.

Sometimes you just need to reset, and sometimes you need that hard reset more than other times. And while a trip to the Bahamas would do the trick, sometimes all you need is to finish that 1000 piece puzzle and play UNO with family to step out of yourself for a bit.

My break was definitely opportune, as we have officially closed our KickStarter fundraiser with our goal beyond met! Immensely grateful and appreciative of all of those who donated and sent positive thoughts our way. Now we're able to hit the ground running in putting together the inaugural print volume, set to be released this fall!
 
Laura