Requesting vacation time

When I took my industry job I ended up with 2.5 weeks of vacation time in my first year. Coming from grad school this was actually kind of low so I ended up using every second. After the first year I was promoted to a pay grade where we're required to have 4 allocated weeks regardless of time with the company (typically promotions here give 2 days/year of service) with 0.5 weeks added per year. I use about 3 weeks when you factor in the holidays, occasional Fridays off, miscellaneous time for when family or friends are in town, half days, etc.  The amount of time off doesn't bother me since my schedule prevents me from taking more than that, my problem with vacation time is that I have to request it, get approved, and make sure that I'm not taking too much time off in the eyes of the higher-ups.  I get even more judgment passed on me because I have a bustling out-of-work life with plenty of friends and hobbies. The higher-ups work all the time. So when I'm taking long weekends and extra vacation time beyond the 1 week the higher-ups allocate to themselves I get looks of disappointment. I felt guilty at first but now I don't. While I love my work, I love my personal life more. 

But I still hate getting the looks of disappointment/anger every time I put on vacation time. That is one thing I'm really looking forward to about academia. If I need to take off for something personal or just need some time off to decompress, or help out family or friends. I don't have to formally request anything.  It also opens me up for longer lunches.  So long as I make meetings and classes I get relative freedom. Sure, there will still be judgment and lots of work to make up for, but I won't have to login to the vacation website and request a set number of hours while keeping track of what I have left. There's a quote I've heard before: "academia is great; you can work 80 hours a week whenever you want."  I'm fine with long hours, I just want to work and take time off without requesting it. Something about that website reminds me of how owned I am. And NO PERSON SHALL OWN ME! :)

Family chaos and boredom

I don't know why, but I really don't care about seeing family. I know I should, and I have fun, but part of me (the biggest part) just doesn't care. I love socializing, but every year I'm reminded how little I have in common with my direct and extended family. Maybe because I've been off on my own since I was 17 I didn't develop mutual interests with my family. I'm also the only STEMer from my liberal arts family on my side, and my blue-collar hands-on working family on my spouse's side. But I'm not sure that's it, because most of my friends are non-STEM.  I kind of have this same issue professionally, I'm pretty quick to make friends (I usually develop a set of dependable friends within a month of living somewhere), but they end up being the more detached-from-their-work personalities. We never talk about work when we're together (which makes meetings very difficult) and despise talking work when it's not necessary. I love the work, although not as much as I love open-ended research.

My spouse thinks it's because everyone around us having kids so their interests and conversational direction tends to lean towards kids. Since I don't have them and I'm not yet interested, it's tough to get involved. To me, family just makes it loud and overcrowded. Loud commotion, tons of competing mini-conversations, lots of drinking. It's like a bar...if bars had kids with new toys running chaotically all over the place. I also think I get bored when I visit because there's not much to do in the small cities my spouse and I grew up in. I'm sitting on my phone while everyone is just watching TV or napping.  I'll be heading back to Major City, USA tomorrow and probably end up missing family. This whole situation is very difficult to comprehend how I feel, and I can't wait for the next holiday season.