For the rest, we need to talk. 

What is this new vacation epidemic and why are we all encouraging it so much? 

For those of you who do not know, these last two months were the first for me where I had employment in the Summer. Like, legit employment- the desk job kind. In the past, I was working on freelance "independent" consultancy projects aka shit that don't pay jack shit and is the only pleasant way of saying jobless (I digress) *cough*. Maybe it's this year that I noticed or maybe it's just been a very recent thing, why is everyone around me behaving like they were employed in a coal mine and deserve a vacation to Hawai? 

Literally, everyone I know travelled in the last two months, or over the span of six months and why not. Have money, shall spend hashtag wanderlust hashtag vacation hashtag I totally deserve it. 

What becomes of people like yours truly, who continue to work over the Summer, over the last six months, over the last year or over two? Do we not hashtag deserve a vacation? Are we not hashtag human? Don't be hashtag harsh. (I'm done. Hashtag stopped.)

I'll tell you what becomes of us- nothing. 

For some of us, Summer is a reminder of the Sisyphean tragedy. Of the drudgery of the discontentment, we have with life. It's a slap in the face of those of us struggling to put together a decent life by saving every penny they earn in a month, in order to have a secure future. Fuck their Instagram feed, and fuck their insatiable life. 

It doesn't suck that we didn't travel, what sucks is that YOU left, took off without us. And again, why not? You have earned the right to travel by being privileged enough to be an heir to a place which can hire the lot of us- a mediocre creative person, a highly self-motivated but failed academic- we're all the same. Aren't we? That's what I've gathered in the last couple of months. It doesn't matter where you come from, who you are and what you make of your life. All that matters is where did you travel over the Summer and what all places did you cover? Would you like a scratch map with your case of daddy's money? 

This post may be bitter but it's only because I'm absolutely fucking frustrated of repeating the same thing over and over again. It's been ten months since this job and while I enjoy it, sure, it's beginning to get to me. How long until I graduate? How long until this semester ends? If you stay in an institute long enough, your sense of timing gets sharper. You care about the end of the Semester, of the year. Since, the new year brings with itself new books, new texts, new deadlines, there's some sense of excitement- that which can be shared with your fellow participants. I usually reserve déja vu of going to a new class with meeting a man for the first time. The excitement is nearly the same, as is the let down at the end of the day. You're full of hopes and smell of freshly ironed school uniform, newly wrapped notebooks in brown paper and carefully stapled cellophane on the books, just as your hair looks and your arm smells when you see a man on a date. On your way back, both from school and the date, there's a sense of shit what colossal fuckery was this anyway?! It's just the same, the fresh smell of uniform and disappointment when your expectations crumble. Too morbid for a Friday night? 

A job, on the other hand, is a lot like being a prostitute being stuck in her profession. There's only so much ooh-aahing to do and only limited amount of faking pleasure. You get paid for what you give, which is to say, there's no way you can calculate/tabulate your time unless of course you're on a contractual basis, a tip common for those of us in jobs and the prostitutes in their profession. Life's beginning to get a little stagnant. 

My fingers, beginning to get a little sore with repetition. I tried deviating by flying to Pune and coming back. Didn't help my case, and have only been sick since. Instead, what's happening is the return of the migratory birds as I'm charting an influx of people wanting to "catch up" over what they did around Lake Como or California. 

Newsflash- I'll strangle the first person I see who talks about their vacation or sightseeing with me.

I don't fucking get rubbing travel in people's face. I mean, you're part privileged and part lucky for you have the opportunity to do that. For the lesser mortals, who are trying to work their ass hard, your stories, images and paraphernalia act as a consolation prize, a metaphor for those kids at 90s birthday parties who couldn't manage to grab anything from the Khoi Bag. Those wastrels were offered a handful of candies at the end by the mother/father of the child to make up for their poor sense of hand to eye coordination. Unfortunately, life isn't as kind on those of us who grow up to be those wastrels. Instead, some of us have to show up to work daily to make up for being in academia for ages and trying their best to get a scholarship to fuck off. 

I've always believed for those of us who are not so pretty, the only option for us to do anything is to work damn hard. If you're a 8 and above, you can easily step out of the rat race and let people do things for you. If you're a baron/heir/heiress/royalty, again you can bow out. However, the remaining people with ill luck truly have to work an extra mile to manage to chill for three days. 

Which again, is completely and absolutely fine, just as long as people don't continue to shove their extensive one month chilling at the Venetian plans in my face. I swear on all things ugly, I'll be the first to tear your passport if you come and share your vacation plan with me. 

But that's not all, there are those who are completely downtrodden, back broken and hard working who go out and chill. Good for you. However, rules apply to you as well. Keep it to your fucking self. 

Will it kill people if they withhold some information about their life? Will their kids die of cancer if they don't stand and make irrelevant conversation about travelling all Summer, whether it's on the 'gram or in person. 

Please wash your dirty linens in private. And in this case, keep your vacation pictures to your cellphone. There's a reason you paid extra for 128 GB internal memory. Meanwhile, I'll go enjoy my two day vacation, that which poor folks like us call "weekend".