What is a "Spring Break"

Everyone knows early March to mid-April is usually when academia schedules a break from studies, the one to two week period known as spring break. Some of us have college kids come home, while others have their k-12 school age kids home during the daytime hours.

Years past at our house this might mean shopping trips for Easter dresses or maybe a few local day trips. With Brian working this didn't necessarily mean an out of town vacation, at least not for an entire week anyway.

Over the last eight years, I've had kids coming home from college, which does change the house dynamics. As adults, we often get set in our schedules and routines, so this period becomes a break for us as well. Maybe not the kind of break typically thought of as spring break, but a break, none- the -less. Growing up, I had images of Panama City and Fort Lauderdale when day dreaming about spring break. Primarily because there was an 80s movie called "Spring Break" about wild college kids.

Websters tells me the word break means to vary or disrupt the uniformity or continuity of something; an opening; or a failure to conform. I guess that's what it is for most of us. We have just gotten back into our routines after the hub-bub of the holiday season. Some of us have only recently gotten all holiday remnants put away, Granted, not everyone puts up ten Christmas trees, but let's not judge...so it's March, so what. Anyhoo, most of us are back in a routine and then it's disrupted, either by school age kids at our heels or we're trying to steal a little time from our college kids before we're total empty nesters.

Justine now lives over a thousand miles away in Mississippi, of all places. I knew I wouldn't have her the whole week, but I stole a few days. She took off with a group of friends to Mission Beach in San Diego.

With several of them going they needed a reliable vehicle that was big enough for the whole group. As my luck would have it, this meant they needed my car. Hope and Brian were both traveling for work this week so that left me driving Justine's "hooptie," and I do mean "hooptie." This Nissan Xterra is fully decked out with pink dingle balls and fuzzy dice. The seats are zebra print and she has painted the entire inside with her artwork. She has also completely covered the inside roof with polaroids of she and her friends. She's nothing if not creative. Over the last few years when Brian has griped about how we will never be able to sell "Greg" the name she lovingly calls this gaudy hunk of metal on four wheels, I've rolled my eyes and thought it's her car. She can do with it what she wants. Greg became my ride this week. To say driving it was interesting would be an understatement. My maps were not on the car screen and the car play worked intermittently.

Another definition of the verb form of "break" recently caught my eye - to force or make a way through. This causes me to pause. Most of us are creatures of habit. It's comfortable. Our routine is our norm. We understand it and expect it, kind of like we expect working maps and car play in our automobile, but what happens when there is a break. No reliable car play or working maps. This could cause a breakdown for some of us. Trust me. It almost did for me, but even then it's only a breakdown of our learned habits and daily routines. Does that make it a break through? And is that a good thing? If you had asked me to ponder this while I was driving "Greg" to dance the other evening I would have said, "hell no." However, I've had a few days to reflect and maybe I needed this break and disruption of my uniformity. It certainly added a little color to my week. I didn't get to lay on the beach with all the college hotties, but for a brief few minutes I had a break in my normal daily routine. And maybe sometimes we need to force or break through our daily monotony. Without "breaks" how can we grow? Soon enough we'll all go back to our daily jobs, gyms, soap operas, etc, but why not disrupt the current path we're on, if only for a few days. Change is good. We all need it periodically and between you and me, driving a hooptie can be fun. I not only felt like a badass, but a YOUNG badass.