No more days off. No more long weekends. No more weeks luxuriating in the otherworldliness of not being at work.
No more day trips, no more travelling abroad, no more completing lengthy DIY projects at home.
Just work work work from now on and forever. Ad infinitum without a break, pause or cessation.
I realize this new ethos of mine will be hard on the wife and kids but for the sake of my fragile mental health it must be so.
My reasons are thus:
I am back on an even keel. I’ve re-established that balance of ambivalence, insensitivity and self-delusion that enables one to get up every day and go to work and kid yourself that life is fine and dandy and you can keep this up forever and ever amen.
It wasn’t easy. I had a wobble. I teetered on the slippery edge of the pit of depression. I felt it’s cold, merciless maw sucking at my feet on Tuesday.
Why?
I had a lovely day off with my wife on Monday to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. We spent the day in Stow. We pottered about without the kids. We had a gorgeous meal at a fabulous eatery (The Talbot for those of you close enough to investigate for yourselves). We found a terrific vintage / antique shop wherein I bought a classic leather jacket that fit me perfectly (I am now waiting for the temperatures to cool again so that I can wear it). The sun shined. We were happy and at peace. We got to thinking that this is how life should be always. It was perfect.
And then I returned to work and the whole happy-shiny facade came tumbling down around me. Reality bit. I tasted dust and ash. I had to turn my face away from the sunshine of freedom and press it back against the iron-pocked grindstone of earning-a-crust.
It nearly destroyed me.
It’s the drop, you see?
The screaming descent from that wonderful carefree high to the brimstone earth’s-core low of back-to-workness.
It’s one hell of a mood swing. And I just don’t think I can cope with them anymore.
If one day can do that to me, imagine what a more lengthy period of holiday will do?
I’ve got 2 weeks off in August! It might just kill me!
So I’ve decided. No more putting myself through that cold hard climb to recovery. No more dragging the comatose corpse of my vital mind back out of the darkness of post-holiday-induced depression.
I’m on a even keel right now. I’ve hauled myself out of the bottomless waters of the ocean onto my fragile little raft. I’m nicely afloat. I’m flat-lining; avoiding the peaks and troughs of fortune and misfortune. I want neither too much wind nor none at all. An eternity of white skies with just a touch of breeze is fine.
No more holidays. No more living life the way it ought to be lived.
It’s a matter of survival.
It’s a matter of staying alive.
Wish me well. Maybe when I retire we could risk a visit to the pub for a celebratory drink?
However, I’m not promising.
21 comments:
How strange that you published this piece. I've just today cancelled my week off next week, because I can't be arsed with coming back to a load of emails and paperwork. If I take the week off, I only enjoy it for a few days, and then the thought of going back just depresses me so much that the rest of the holiday is dreadful. Even more so if I don't actually go away. I end up hanging around - waiting to go back to work. Your last 2 post have been brilliant Steve- very entertaining and thought provoking.
Dicky: thank you. You and me... we're riding a zeitgeist. Possibly we're the only 2 passengers but what the hell...!
Yes Steve it's true, once you've tried heaven you never want to return to hell...can I have your holiday allowance?
Nota Bene: holiday allowance? I'll be taking that myself as overtime, matey.
Life is short.
Libby: but work is eternal.
Lovely Life with a capital Luuuuu......that is what non working days are for us and we have spent far too bloody many of our working days wanting to escape.....don't settle Steve....don't be me in 20/30 years..regretting 34 years in a job you hate.......Run Forest Run!!!!!
Libby: if life is like a box of chocolates I want the coffee centre!
What you need is an Indian guru to follow. Seriously, man, he'd have you skipping over hot coals in a loin cloth with your wispy beard dangling in the wind, and your soul would finally be liberated. The aggravations of work would seem like droplets of pee on the bathroom floor.
There is an alternative. Start your own business and you can take your worries with you wherever and whenever you go. They even keep you from being bored in the small hours and the dark of night:)
Gorilla Bananas: walk on hot coals? With my verucas? Are you crazy?
English Rider: and I still get to work for arseholes too - it'll be like a home from home (or a work from work)! Brilliant idea!
It's like going out for a wonderful outing and coming home to the sour face.... only multiplied beyond my mathematical ability to quantify.
The fly in the web: if only the sour face was the least of it...
I think you are on to something there... too true, too true, the excruciating mental agony of returning to work after a holiday... just went through it returning from Italy recently... suicide in such situations is definitely an option to be considered.
But what will all the travel agencies do if no one takes vacation any more? Thousands more people in the soup lines.
The only reason I may still be alive today is that I had my Blackberry with me on vacation and stayed abreast of all the e-mail traffic, so I didn't get too totally disconnected from work. Otherwise the return could well have been brutally unbearable...
Bon courage Steve, hang in there, don't let the bastards wear you down ! :-)
Owen: the travel agents will survive just fine... there's always bracing weekends at Clacton for those people who have retired...
Well, get a tour bus and head down here for your summer holidays (hell, even bring Sir Cliff if you want...)
Amanda: if I bring sir Cliff it'll be because I want to dispose of his body.
Hey Grumps, holidays are the BEST ever! All I live for!. I've a feeling you take your work too seriously! Chillax! ; )
Hannah: the only thing that makes me grumpy is going back to work after a good holiday!
Yu have said it many times here, so I am preaching to the inverted. But you need to change your job mi'lad.
Keith: I hear you, my friend, I hear you!
Post a Comment