The woman I keep meeting on holiday

Half an hour ago (as I write this) my phone rang.

It was my big brother.

“Just doing the post-holiday welfare checks,” he said, laughing. “Making sure everyone’s okay about going back to work tomorrow.”

It made me laugh because he’d rung all of us. My sister. Mum. Me. One by one, checking that none of us had fallen into a post-holiday depression.

It’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.

We’d just spent a week and a half together in the Whitsundays, six of us (sister, brother, sister-in-law, Mum, husband and me) chartering a catamaran and exploring the islands. There was swimming, snorkelling, beachcombing, too much good food and drink and an almost embarrassing amount of laughter. We laughed every single day.

Now we were all home again.

Back to alarms.
Back to lunches.
Back to calendars.
Back to work.

And after I hung up the phone, I found myself thinking about something I’d noticed while we were away.

Why do I feel like a different person on holiday?

I really liked the woman I was on that boat.

Not because she’d suddenly become adventurous or carefree or someone with a completely different personality.

She was still me. She just felt … lighter.

The pressure valve

Before we left, I’d been carrying around at least a couple of months of work and life stress. The kind of stress that creeps up quietly and you don’t realise how tightly wound you’ve become until it’s impossible to ignore. My jaw was rock hard and locked most days. I had started dropping those extra-curricular responsibilities that were draining my energy, but I was close to breaking point. As close as I have been in a couple of years.

A good cry probably would have helped. Unfortunately, even that seemed to be stuck. (My emotional constipation is a story for another time.)

I hadn’t had a proper, “go away and completely switch off” holiday for a couple of years, and I think I’d forgotten what it felt like to let the pressure valve release.

The funny thing is, we weren’t exactly doing nothing.

By the end of each day, I had probably been more consistently active than I would on an average day at home.

Yet I had more energy.

I’ve been wondering about that ever since.

Was it simply the novelty of being somewhere different? The fact that I was moving more? The sunshine? The salt water?

Or was something else happening?

We often think about giving our bodies a break, but I wonder if my nervous system was having a holiday too. Maybe it wasn’t the holiday itself. Maybe it was the temporary absence of the constant mental juggling that usually hums away in the background.

Maybe that’s why I came home feeling physically tired, but somehow mentally lighter.

Morning rituals

The first morning after we left the marina, I woke up, pulled on my bathers and went upstairs onto the deck.

Without really thinking, I stepped straight off the back of the boat into the water.

As it turned out, my brother and sister had exactly the same idea. They were already floating there.

No discussion.

No plan.

Just three grown adults, bobbing around in the ocean before breakfast.

It felt wonderfully normal and we immediately began brainstorming ways to enjoy our morning coffees while we bobbed around.

(Never did solve that problem.)

Salt water

Salt water has always been one of those things that feels therapeutic to me. Like I’m coming home to myself.

Every summer in Tasmania, no matter how cold the water is, I swim. Luckily we have our own boat, so stepping off the deck into the salt water is common for me. Sometimes I just float for a while, looking up at the sky.

It makes me feel close to Dad.

I’d never really connected those dots before, but maybe that’s why it feels so important. Maybe floating isn’t just relaxing for me. Maybe it’s become one of the places where I recognise myself.

Apparently it doesn’t matter whether the water is 14 degrees or 24 degrees. The only thing that affects is the amount of time I spend submerged.

Family laughter

I laughed more on that holiday than I have in a long time.

My siblings are ridiculous, and together we seem to become teenagers again. We talk utter shit most of the time – with a hefty sprinkling of long-running family jokes thrown in there. We even made space for some new holiday-specific running jokes … like the time we invented a new drink after Mum had gone to bed, so we got her up to taste-test it and she came up to the galley in her night-shirt and undies.

The relaxed nature of the holiday was contagious.

I don’t think I realised how much I’d missed that family banter. Or maybe I didn’t realise how much I’d missed that version of me.

The one who wasn’t mentally writing tomorrow’s to-do list while someone else was talking.
The one who didn’t feel guilty for having a nap if she was tired.
The one who wasn’t constantly aware of the time.
The one who noticed the colour of the water changing throughout the day.

She wasn’t trying to be more mindful or more present.

She just … was.

Home again

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been tired again.

Not because home is bad. I love my life.

But it’s made me curious.

How is it that I could spend a week being more active than usual, yet come home feeling more exhausted sitting behind a desk?

I don’t have an answer and I’m not even sure I’m asking the right question.

Is it the relative mundanity of ordinary life, compared to a holiday? The fact I can’t just swim around following turtles and fish all morning? I mean, I could still have sundowners on our deck at home, but it’s fricken freezing at the moment and wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable.

Maybe holidays don’t change us. Maybe they simply remove enough noise for us to hear ourselves again.

Maybe the woman I keep meeting on holiday isn’t some better version of me.

Maybe she’s been here all along, quietly waiting underneath the meetings, the responsibilities, the routines and the endless mental tabs I keep open.

I don’t think it’s possible – or even desirable – to live like I’m on holiday all year round. At least not until I retire.

But I do wonder if I can make a little more room for her.

Not by booking another trip.

By asking what she seems to need in order to appear.

A swim.
A proper laugh.
An afternoon without rushing.
Permission to rest when I’m tired.
Less pressure.
More space.

I’ve realised this isn’t really a story about holidays.

If you’ve ever wondered why you feel like a different person on holiday, perhaps it’s because the version of you that everyday life keeps buried finally has room to breathe.

I don’t know if everyone has a “holiday self”, but I suspect many of us have a version of ourselves that only appears when the pressure eases.

And I have a feeling that she is worth getting to know.

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