“The Lost Weekend” was the 1945 Academy Award Winner. It starred Ray Milland as a charming but pathetic writer who was as worse an alcoholic that can ever be depicted. The movie focuses on one weekend when he is supposed to be focused on writing a book but is on an ongoing bender of fueling his endless thirst for alcohol, having delusions of clarity on his book while drinking, but coming with nothing when sitting in front of a typewriter. The people who love and support him who can do nothing to prevent his collapse.
I had a lost weekend based on having a cold with a level of intense symptoms and weakness that smite me down from someone who could often not sit still to someone who could not get up. My commitment to the couch was at my condo in sunny Florida, all alone. I had gotten away to play ball and do some creative work on my own terms. I could do neither.
However, despite the fact I did nothing but watch one channel, Turner Classic Movies, I gained from this lost weekend. I had a chance to understand the gift of health I take for granted every day. I also saw some of the greatest movies, all Academy Award Winners with actors like Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Audrey Hepburn who expressed the evils and temptations of the world without shedding an inch of flesh or uttering a profane word.
When I woke up this morning after dozing off through the Super Bowl and feeling much better, I realized that my mind had a better vacation that if my body stayed healthy. And sometimes we just have to take vacations on our own terms and give ourselves that gift to rejuvenate the mind. I know for most of my audience which are wedding professionals, stationery retailers and wedding industry suppliers, now may not be the time.