FanPost

The Power of a Wrestling Vacation

WWE.com

Do you like chocolate? I like chocolate. If I go a few days without it I start to notice. There've been a few times when I've gone over a week without eating a little sliver of the cacao pod and that first bite is explosive. It lingers. It haunts. That one little nugget of bittersweet goodness, and the whole world shuts down until it has been fully consumed.

On Wednesday, I returned from my 10-day journey down to Costa Rica where my girlfriend and I "slummed it" at a bed and breakfast outside of Alajuela for a few days. Then we got carted off to the mountains and stayed in a beautiful cabin on an organic family farm that produces such things as sun dried coffee, sugar cane, plantains, bananas, avocados, mangoes and more. The cabin overlooked the mountains surrounding Santa Elena so the sunsets were gorgeous to say the least. Oh, and we also stayed in a tree house in the middle of the jungle in Santa Clara where, 10 minutes into our stay, we saw a sloth just roaming through the treetops.

This all may sound braggy, and it totally is, but it was actually my first trip off the continent of North America and only my second trip via plane so it was pretty eye opening. My first flight was to Chicago last year. I've lived a pretty sheltered existence in Toronto for most of my days. What does all this bragging have to do with wrestling? Well, I didn't have access to a computer for most of the trip and only had a couple WiFi hot spots to check in with the online world. This means I completely missed SummerSlam as well as the go home Raw and Raw following the PPV.

My girlfriend, bless her, planned most of the trip, but didn't check in with my wrestling schedule. What a jerk, eh? So after everything was confirmed and paid for I realized SummerSlam was coming up, which was also exciting. Then BOOM! The even bigger realization hit that I'd miss the show. Granted I wasn't overly crushed as the Internet exists and I could watch it any time upon my return, but it's always fun hanging out with my wrestling buddy and watching shows live. Also, there was the fact that - top to bottom - it was gearing up to be an amazing show. Do I regret missing watching it live? To be honest, I don't. It was my longest time away from wrestling since I got back into it a few years ago and I wouldn't take back that experience for anything.

There's the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder and just like chocolate, wrestling is another vice of mine that I'm rarely without. My days can become consumed by it and even last night over our first pint back in T-Dot I was gushing to my partner about how amazing SummerSlam was. The vacation was thrilling. Nature is a crazy beast. Everything in the jungle is in perfect harmony, as intimidating as some of those beasts can be. With that knowledge and the fact we had just gotten back home the day before there were a million things I could've talked about. But, nope. There I was talking to her about the wonderful psychology behind John Cena losing as decisively as he did.

Having time away from something you love makes you appreciate it more and anticipate how brilliant it'll be to experience it once you're reunited. Being a fan of wrestling can be painful at times and one can become really, really, really, REALLY bitter. Luckily, SummerSlam exceeded all my expectations and I'm a happy fan again. Maybe it truly was a classic PPV for the ages, or maybe I was wearing post-vacation rose colored glasses. Either way I longed for the show when my feet hit Canadian soil, and it was everything I thought it could be and more.

Call it an addiction. Call it a vice. Call it what you will. I love wrestling.

Cagesiders, sound off on times you've been away from wrestling. And if you want to read more of my Fanposts click here.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.