What happens in Vegas…

We recently took a trip to Vegas with a group of friends, 15 of us in total.

The whole gang is here! Even though only 6 of us were born in 1984, we got everyone to wear the shirts!

I was looking forward to it for a long time. We had a few days of planned activities and lots of open space to do whatever we wanted. I was looking forward to the warmer weather and time with our friends.

We were flying in Thursday evening with our planned events kicking off Friday afternoon. Once our group activities started we were going to be pretty flat out for a few days. I had a chill Thursday evening planned - unpack/organize the room, get some snacks from Target and get a good night of sleep. Unfortunately, we had a hiccup in these plans which included a layover in Calgary and a 4am wake up to catch our flight.

I’m very grateful that the airline had an email waiting in my inbox when we landed in Calgary providing meal vouchers and telling me to choose a hotel to stay at. But what I really wanted to was to be on our way to Vegas. Half our group was there already, the other half of us were in this predicament together. We made the best of it and still had fun but harder than the disappointment for me was the fact that this delay meant I didn’t have my buffer time to settle in before the planned activities began.

I didn’t even realize it at the time, I was just focused on getting there and having a good time. In fact, I was probably hyper focused on it. I felt like we were behind in our vacation and needed to catch up. We got there in time to check in, have a quick bite to eat, shower and get to the hockey game.

When we got to our seats with our group it was a sigh of relief and rush of excitement to see everyone! We made it! Let’s have some fun! And oh boy did we ever!

Group activities included: Knights vs Sens game, Top Golf, Dinner at BrewDog, Karaoke and a pool Cabana at MGM

It was all a lot of fun. I laughed hard so many times. I sang my heart out and we all did our best to beat Neale on Ottis’ trivia questions. It felt good to be with the group, to connect and let loose, to be together. There was 6 of us who turn 40 this year and it was like a 5 year reunion from when we’d been there (along with many others) for a wedding.

Let me tell you, 5 years makes a difference in how I can party and especially how I can recover!

Vegas is in a time zone 4 hours behind PEI. That alone can throw a person off but I find in Vegas time doesn’t even matter and that threw me off even more than usual. After all, I went back and forth between Calgary and PEI (3 hour time difference) for years and it never seemed to be too big of an adjustment.

But this particular trip I got my times all messed up. I was waking up at 10am Vegas time which is 2pm here at home. That’s a lot to adjust to when you come back to the real world.

I’m not much of a drinker anymore. I haven’t given it up altogether but I definitely limit my intake. Without booze to keep me going I felt like I needed something else so I was reaching for a lot of coffees and energy drinks. Specifically, the Alani ones - so good! This certainly helped with that time warp and messed up my sleep…

Leading up to the trip, I had envisioned myself getting up in the morning to go for a little walk or workout, grab coffee and read or journal by the pool before kicking off the day. This is how I start my days when we go down south and I love it. But I didn’t realize the set up of this trip would be so different.

With the scheduled events we had, I was rolling out of bed with not much more than just enough time to find something to eat, get myself dressed and off to our activity. I did luck out with being able to meet a few from the group for about an hour by the pool one morning but it wasn’t quite enough to keep me from spiralling a little bit.

I felt like I was just sucked into the Vegas vibes and was along for the ride. My energy was flailing and I was starting to just go through the motions, without really feeling connected or present to what we were up to.

On Monday afternoon I was able to pull myself out of the vortex. We weren’t really doing anything and I was feeling really restless and out of sorts but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I decided to take a little time to myself - everyone had kind of split off in different directions and it was a great opportunity to chill.

What a gift to myself that was!

I knew I was out of alignment. The whole day at MGM pool on Sunday (the day before) I had a headache and was just feeling out of sorts. The over stimulation and lack of solitude was catching up to me but I was frustrated to be feeling shitty on vacation so I just pushed through and tried to make the best of it. I think I also just didn’t want to let anyone down by going later or cancelling on plans.

I didn’t take what I needed when I needed it.

So I’m glad I stepped away on Monday afternoon for that alone time. I spent it in our room, curled up in bed. I had some healthy snacks, read my book, did some journalling and I napped. It was relieving to take that time, I cried a bit as I released the feelings that were pent up. Sometimes a good cry can just feel so therapeutic.

Looking back I don’t see a space for me to have been able to do that before Monday unless I had opted out of some of the group plans. And honestly, that might be something I’d do in the future but even more important I think I’ll plan better buffers between commitments in an attempt to avoid going through this again.

After my downtime, I was able to enjoy the rest of the trip and I put a bit more of a focus on what I needed in terms of rest, hydration and nutrition. But it was going to take a bit to get me feeling aligned again. You don’t bounce back from that much chaos overnight but with patience and commitment it’ll happen.

I was lucky enough to meet up with a few girlfriends in Calgary during a long layover and then we took the red eye to Halifax. Once we landed, we headed to Dave’s brother’s place for a few nights and finally got back home Saturday late afternoon.

I was so exhausted but I wanted to get back into my routine stat.

But I pushed myself a little too hard to start and it backfired on me. On top of trying to get back onto AST, we had a time change (thanks daylight savings) and I got my period. It was a bit of a perfect storm but luckily I had the tools and knowledge to navigate it. I just also needed the patience to give myself time to adjust.

And now, here we are, two weeks post Vegas and not only am I now back in my rhythm but I’ve also processed the whole trip enough to be ready to share about it.

So remember…what happens in Vegas…can take a few weeks to recover from!

I’m not saying it’s not worth it but I do know that I will go into the next trip differently to do my best to limit the length of post vacation recovery needed. It’s all about learning and growing with each new experience!