For the last week I’ve been in paradise. I’ve watched the sunrise over the Caribbean after falling asleep on a tropical beach. I’ve danced the night away to a native band’s beat.

And then I came back here to school and responsibility. I came back to a war. I came back with more unanswered questions than when I left Amherst more than a week ago.

I question our country’s motives in world politics and the stability of this nation’s economic policies. I become even more cynical about our nation’s leaders, and in what direction their leadership is taking us.

I feel guilty for enjoying the Bahamas when my friends are mourning for their brothers and lovers overseas fighting. I feel bad watching my best friend sit glued to a news station, waiting to hear the names of the marines lost in an ambush, wondering if her brother is safe.

Why is it so easy to just forget about what’s going on with the serious international tensions? To forget about work and school?

I drove through the whole eastern seaboard and I didn’t see a somber country at war. I thought I was going to drive through a nation on edge, but that was not the case.

Besides the fact that gun stores have inherited the south and 12-year-olds do their local ammo shopping in Wal-Mart, the landscape was calm.

In fact, during the route I took I encountered more friendly people than I have in the north. People were anxious to help with whatever they could, well, besides some of the folks of a small place by the name of Crooked River in Georgia, who tempted us with some fake free firewood.

Being back here just seems so bland and depressing, although it is nice to not have to squat in the woods to take a whiz or worry about my girls popping out of my bathing suit.

But back here at school is so tense, like the calm before an awful storm. Here I have real problems, with serious responsibilities that I cannot neglect.

Here the war is a real thing. Here I know people overseas in Kuwait and Afghanistan. Some of my high school friends who I used to goof around with are over there fighting a war of blood for oil, a war that our generation will be paying for out of our pockets and hearts for the rest of our life.

Vacations are more than just a break from work and the same old thing. Vacations show us a different perspective of the world, a view from a different window to the world. They allow us to see life from another vantage point, one that may be more desirable than the one to which we will return.

Everything in the Bahamas was so easy and carefree, like a long summer nap in a porch swing. But then reality sets in again, life comes back and smacks you in the ass, waking you up from what is quickly becoming a distant dream.

And while I am remembering these dreams I cannot help but ask myself ‘What is all the fuss about?’ And really, what is the big deal, the point to all off this monotony we put ourselves through, day after day, and all for what? So that our president can reward our efforts as a nation by sticking us in the middle of a country that we have no business being in?

That’s just ridiculous. But what is even more ridiculous is that we continue to let it happen, we continue to let it be pushed further and further, and at the same time, even more out of our control.

Our daily work blinds us, it sets up an impenetrable shield that we cannot see through, much like our vacations blind us from responsibility. But like vacations always end, our blinds must come off, and we must realize our responsibilities and obligations to the world as a nation.