Life in the New Normal
What’s the Point in Vacations
And do we need them
I’ve just got back from vacation, and I’m absolutely exhausted. Two weeks in the UK visiting family and friends have pretty much destroyed me.
All I feel like now is another vacation.
‘How about Spain in September?’ I said to my wife as we were driving back from Dieppe last night. ‘It would be great if we could get another holiday in before the end of the summer.’
She looked at me sympathetically. ‘I’d love to, but how about work.’
I knew it was a mistake to take a full-time job. In my previous life as a drifter, I ensured I had at least six months off a year. That way, if a two-week trip to visit family and friends went wrong, I had five and a half months to get over it.
Now I’ve got to get straight back to work and continue doing so for the next four months until Christmas. And even then, we’ll probably have to slog it back over to the UK for another family visit.
My cousin told me that vacations are only for the benefit of children and that he just tags along.
‘Like in life, eh?’ I murmured. Luckily, he didn’t hear me as my voice was drowned out by his kids who were high on their fifth packet of Haribos.
My cousin’s lucky though. I don’t have children, so I don’t have the excuse of tagging along. Meaning I have to actually engage with people, which is a problem as I’m awfully antisocial. Come to think of it, it’s a wonder I made any friends in the first place. Maybe I was young. Maybe I was on holiday. Maybe I was drunk.
Vacations, when you’re young, are always more fun than when you’re older. Once you hit adulthood, the debauchery of a Club Med holiday is replaced by driving up and down eight-lane motorways slowly getting addicted (again) to sugar and coffee.
Not to mention the endless hours making small talk around dinner tables drinking cheap wine and eating mountains of potatoes and meat. Not only am I incredibly tired when I arrive back from holiday, I’m also incredibly fat.
So why do we do them?
The Joy of Coming Home
When you’re young you never want to come back from holiday. You’re either too obsessed with making sandcastles, or when you’re a bit older, hopelessly in love with the Spanish girl who works in the bakery.
Either way, you don’t want to return to rainy old England. Yet, when you’re older, even though you’re dog-tired (and fat) there’s a certain joy in coming back. That gorgeous relief when you open your front door, sit down, and think: Thank fuck for that!
Even the thousands of pounds you’ve spent on service station coffees and stodgy, waist-expanding sandwiches, seem worth it. Because you know that in a day or so, everything will be back to normal. The routine re-established. Your sugar levels reset. The headaches from the road rage faded.
Suddenly, your vacation didn’t seem such a bad idea after all, and you’re already looking forward to the next one, simply to experience the bliss of coming back.
Which is why, if nothing else, vacations are the best thing in the world, and why we should keep going on them until we die.
Thanks for reading about My Summer Holiday. For more cynicism, check out…
