Does Anyone Else’s Brain Do This?

There are few phrases in the English language that sound more relaxing than, “We’re heading to our beach house this week for a staycation.” You can practically feel your blood pressure dropping just saying it.

No airports. No delayed flights. No rental cars. No tiny hotel shampoo bottles that somehow leave your hair feeling both greasy and dry.

This week is just us, the beach, two dogs, a stack of books, and absolutely nowhere to be.

And, it was going to be so peaceful.

Or…that was the fantasy.

Reality has arrived at exactly 5:20 every single morning.

Because Bentley has apparently decided that sleeping past sunrise is for the WEAK. Every morning, without fail, he has enthusiastically informed the entire household that the day has begun. Meanwhile, Maddie has reached the age where she’s become that exhausted older sibling. She doesn’t even get out of bed anymore. She just opens one eye, gives Bentley the kind of side-eye that says, “Kid…seriously. Read the room.”

Then there was my grand staycation project. This was finally going to be the week I tackled The Junk Drawer. Not a junk drawer. The junk drawer. Every house has one. It’s less of a drawer and more of an archaeological dig. Somewhere in there are eight rubber bands, fourteen mystery keys, batteries of all shapes and sizes, birthday candles, a gift card that may or may not have funds on it, a charger to something we no longer own, three Allen wrenches, and exactly nineteen pens, four of which actually work.

I confidently announced that this was the week I was finally going to organize it.

Instead, I’ve mostly just opened the drawer, stared into it like I was contemplating the meaning of life, and quietly closed it again.

Apparently my procrastination packed for vacation too.

Then last night, I couldn’t sleep. Not because of Bentley. Not because of anything happening now. Oh no. My brain decided this would be an excellent opportunity to revisit 1998.

Specifically, the time I gave a guy at a bar my phone number…and then immediately changed my mind. So when he called a couple days later, I pretended I had absolutely no idea who he was.

Poor guy.

And for reasons I will never understand, my brain decided that nearly three decades later was the perfect time to unpack that decision.

Thanks, brain. Super helpful.

Which got me thinking…we spend so much of our lives believing presence is automatic. We think if we’re somewhere beautiful we’ll automatically relax. If we’re on vacation we’ll automatically slow down. If we’re sitting across from another person we’ll automatically be fully engaged.

But that’s not how our brains work.

Our bodies arrive long before our minds do.

Our attention bounces between yesterday’s awkward moments, tomorrow’s to-do list, the junk drawer we’re pretending doesn’t exist, whether Bentley is already awake again, and that one mildly embarrassing decision we made before some of you reading this even had email addresses.

Presence isn’t about where your body is. It’s about where your attention is.

And that’s true on vacation, but it’s even more true when we’re with other people.

One of the greatest gifts you can give someone isn’t your advice, your expertise, or even saying exactly the right thing. It’s your attention. People can tell when you’re mentally answering emails. They can tell when you’re waiting for your turn to talk. They can tell when your body is sitting across from them, but your mind is somewhere between 1998 and the junk drawer.

The conversations we remember most rarely happen because someone was the funniest or smartest person in the room. They happen because someone made us feel like, for a few minutes, we were the only person in the room.

So that’s my goal for the rest of this staycation. To stop mentally reorganizing junk drawers. To stop replaying conversations from 1998. To accept that Bentley believes 5:20 a.m. is a perfectly reasonable time to start the day. And maybe…just maybe…to actually be where I already am.

Because if I can’t be fully present while looking out at the ocean, I probably shouldn’t expect to magically become present everywhere else either.

Cheers,
JB 🥑

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