I have been home from the most wonderful holiday EVER for just over four days and it’s pretty bleak at my house at the moment. To be honest, it’s been a real emotional rollercoaster and I have been wrestling with embracing my life again.
I have often thought that the amount of Post-Holiday Depression (PHD) one suffers is in direct proportion to the amount of awesomeness that was experienced whilst on holidays. When I look it that way, it really reaffirms that I have had a truly magnificent time away and I am immensely grateful for that.
I was chatting to a very dear friend of mine this morning about how I have been feeling and how come – for someone who is as upbeat as me – the PHD can be so vicious.
I concluded that even though I love my life, it’s wonderful to have a real break from it and from all the stuff that consumes my thoughts and time during the day. Having a four week respite from work, business, social media, social engagements, mundane chores and food shopping has been total soul food. Not to mention the free ticket to eat and drink like calories didn’t exist.
Holidays are so important for the soul. They are a chance to step away from our lives and be someone different. If we have highly stressful lives, it’s the opportunity to not have a worry in the world. If we have a life that involves picking up and dropping kids off all day, we get to stop being the taxi driver and be the one who gets to look out the window and watch the passing view. If we live with discipline around our food and exercise, often we give ourselves some leeway to enjoy all the culinary delights that a holiday can offer.
Holidays – whether they are a four week vacation or a four day getaway – are a time for doing the things that we forget to do most days. I love watching clouds yet on the average day I only glimpse the clouds. I don’t lie on the grass and stare at the heavens for half an hour at a time. I also love exploring the markets, shops and back alleys, yet at home this is something I rarely, if ever, do. While I was away this time, I lost hours wandering from one little shop to the next. I didn’t buy anything I just wandered and explored and pottered. These are all words that I associate with lots of time and no schedule.
Holidays are also about adventure: for example, going into a cafe in a foreign country and ordering something that sounds good but you actually have no idea what it is. The simplicity of getting in the car at the start of a road trip to go down south is also full of adventure.
It’s the feeling of excitement and curiosity all rolled into one. It’s the feeling of difference.
As I was flying back into Perth, I opened one of my favourite apps Any Do (a brilliant app for a list junkie like me) and perused my list “Post Holiday Stuff” to start wrapping my head around what was to come over the next week. Once I got home, I got reacquainted with my diary and all of a sudden the holiday was over and I was back in my kitchen staring into my empty fridge seriously contemplating eating a sad piece of cheese that I had missed in my pre-holiday fridge clean and some pickled onions. Yep, that constitutes dinner.
I have realised over the last few days that my PHD is actually me reacclimatising to sameness. After having a sensory overload of difference, the sameness feels so boring and unexciting. I am sure that not having a schedule for four weeks added to my sense of freedom! Yet, I do honestly know that the sameness is what makes my life so special: Friday night dinners with my family, blog writing at my fave cafe, early morning weekend swims at the beach now the weather is warmer. I LOVE this stuff, I love my fruit and veggie store, I love my green smoothie every morning, I love money going into my bank account on the last day of every month.
Sameness is actually pretty damn cool!!
So as I write this I realise that yet again, life has provided me with contrast so I can appreciate all that I get to experience. Without holidays, I wouldn’t appreciate the beautiful day to day life I have because I would never have a break from it. By having holidays I get to experience a respite from my world and be the crazy adventurer who lives so strongly within me.
Like day needs night and yin needs yang, we all need a change of scenery every now and again – even if there is a bit of PHD thrown in at the end.
Beautifully written Kato