Holiday Truths

Have you ever planned a holiday with the intention of getting away from it all to focus on work?

I don’t mean your 9-5 job. Rather some personal objective that you’re keen to move along.

And if so – have you then spent the whole trip distracted by gin and tonics by the pool, bobbing down to the beach for a pre-lunch caña or completing a giant crossword?

If you have, then you’ll be familiar with the feelings I’ve come home with – feelings which combine reeling regret with more than a dash of disappointment.

My holiday ambitions were modest, too. I simply wanted to:

·       Read a book all the way through (I told you they were modest)

·       Plan out the beats for a new sitcom pilot (two sides of A4)

·       Establish a freelance routine so I could hit the ground running

Yet I’ve come home with the feeling it was all a missed opportunity.

Now, yes. It’s perhaps a bit unfair to dwell too much on only the facet of frustration. After all, a holiday should be fun and relaxing – apparently it shouldn’t really be about work at all.

Then how nice it must be to simply pop the ‘out of office’ on and think about nothing more than where to go for a bit o’ lunch or a whether you can handle another finger of gin in your already generously poured, pool-safe, plastic beaker.

But if you’re trying to start (or finish) that novel, pen a new play or pitch some articles – relaxing is easier said than done.

So, let’s dive into what a holiday means to someone who has a heavy in-tray but manages to always put procrastination first.

First off, switch off

Since I left my job last month to go freelance, I haven’t been able to properly switch off. I mean I’ve always struggled to switch off, but I’ve really noticed it since taking the leap into self-employment.

A mixture of anxiety from the uncertainty leading to restless nights in bed have both contributed to an increased awareness of not being able to sit still.

It was naïve of me to assume that because I’d simply hopped two hours south of Gatwick on a grimly early flight, I’d suddenly just find solitude.

Feeling calm and relaxed takes years of practice. You must undo all those homely habits – pottering, whittling and doomscrolling. They’re hardwired into most of these days. One surely doesn’t simply push a button and, and…

… I tell you what, we’ll start even simpler. Let’s first get our head around the concept of switching off.

What is switching off?

We’ll imagine this together. As an aside, I’ve always wondered how films and other people make this look so easy.

You’re by the pool – it’s a pleasant 25 degrees and there’s no breeze, so it feels warmer.

Aside from the odd bird flapping its wings overhead or the rustling of cute critters in the trees and twigs – it’s silent.

No traffic or anything ghastly like that. Just nature.

Alone with your thoughts, you take out a crisp notebook. Enjoying the fresh velvety feel of your new Moleskine, you click your pen and begin to allow thoughts to flow from mind to nib.

Ink trails across the clean page, staining the sheet with your imagination.

Any notion of reaching for your phone, checking an email, fiddling with your knackers or finding someone to bore with your opinion on identity politics is simply non-existent.

You are content. You are at peace. You are, at last, doing what you were put on earth to do.

So why the fuck is it when I get the opportunity to enjoy this apparently universally cherished peace, everything conspires against me?!

Why can’t I switch off?

It’s 22 degrees and there’s a chilly breeze, the pool makes it feel cooler.

The sun is in and out of clouds, and I’m having to move the deck chair in a figure of eight on a 360° angle to soak up what little it has to offer.

The pool’s supposed to have inflatables, and the local maintenance chap is due to arrive with the key for the lock-up at some point to free them from their joyless tomb.

There’s no traffic, but the Beats Pill is blasting out enough tediously bland summer tunes that roaring traffic might actually be a blessed relief.

And then there’s the bugs. The never-ending bugs. If it’s not mosquitos with a thirst for British blood, it’s minuscule worm-like creatures wiggling and tickling their way over every limb.

I’m trying to read the latest Richard Osman. Beat out my next script. Plan a freelance routine!

But all the while I’m having to reapply Jungle Formula (not Jungle Juice as I kept incorrectly referring to it. That, it turns out, is a heavily sought-after leather cleaner), relight the citronella candles and keep an eye out for the maintenance man so I can sit in an inflatable tyre for 20 minutes.

All this set to a soundtrack of Calvin Harris and Blinkie.

How’s anyone supposed to switch off in that environment?

Frankie says relax

All these frustrations getting in the way of switching off are manageable. In fact, most of them are just petty quibbles entitled Brits like me assume won’t happen until they do.

A way of life that, surprisingly enough after a few days, become the way of life.

Really, it’s about relaxing. And eventually you have to ask yourself – do you have the ability to relax?

Because there isn’t a perfect place out there, where all the peaceful feelings convalesce to create a perfect utopia in which to relax.

The ability to disconnect - to switch off - must come from within.

Understanding what’s preventing you/me from accessing that ability is the trick. It could be all sorts.

These days it seems the starting point for most people is it must be a mental health condition. Can’t sit still? ADHD. Anxious? That’ll be autism. High functioning. But autism all the same.

And maybe it is. I’m not discrediting such theories or diagnoses. But it might also be the collation of days, weeks, months and years of terrible habits. Relentless exposure to the news, or friends’ opinions of the news. Memes. Notifications. More news. More opinions.

From the opening of eyelids in the morning to the closing of them at night we’re but two noses away from a 6” computer coughing up reasons why our life isn’t as good as their life. Or we’re drowned in validation about why our rigid way of thinking is the right way of thinking from the comfort of our echo chamber.

We’re reminded that the number one reason to get up in the morning is because the day won’t worry itself away.

This might sound lame to some readers and worryingly familiar to others – but I was so proud of myself for keeping my phone in the bedroom all day. Putting a staircase and an air-conditioned lounge between me by the pool and my phone meant I wasn’t relentlessly checking it.

A win. A real win.

And I might not have planned my next pilot or pitched for any future commissions this holiday - but I did finish a book. A whole book. So I’ll take that.

One out of three ain’t bad.