A life lesson, if you will.
Hello from sunny Bulgaria ☀️
I’m sitting surrounded by holiday makers, who are drinking merrily, happily gifting me their second hand smoke (yay me 😖) and shouting football chants for their respective countries as they watch them compete in the Euros 2024.
It’s Day 4 of my holiday and it’s the first day that I’ve been able to sit and relax.
Unbeknownst to me when I booked a destination holiday to get my novel finished, I’ve spent a majority of my holiday so far in bed with a stinking cold that has required a lot of sleep and a daily dose of medicine that the lady in the Bulgarian pharmacy assured me would help me feel loads better.
I do feel loads better, minus the blocked nose and the very bunged up, nasally voice that I’m left with.
But a writing holiday, this has turned out NOT to be. Sure words have been written but nowhere near the amount that I had enthusiastically hoped to achieve and have no doubt that I would have, had I been in full health.
The problem that I’ve identified in my sickbed whilst being tripped out by the Bulgarian adverts that I can’t understand and have contributed to my fever dreams is this… although I have daily rest scheduled into my usual day to day - I close my laptop down by 5pm as often as I can, I have boundaries with clients who know not to contact me after a certain time, I exercise and I try to be in bed by 9.30pm, asleep by 10.30pm - I have not had a holiday, a true proper holiday without any work, any writing, any designing or anything like that for over a year!
Probably closer to two years, actually. That’s not something I’ll be shouting from the rooftops about anytime soon.
At a family wedding abroad over a year ago, I recall sitting on the balcony of my hotel room and making content for a client back home, being unable to truly switch off but reassuring myself that it’s a great opportunity that I get to be a remote worker and be able to work from anywhere and sit with my laptop on my fingertips whilst on holiday.
In hindsight, it’s no accident that my body was looking forward to a pause, looking forward to guaranteed hot weather and the opportunity to sit by a pool, sipping on all inclusive non alcoholic beverages and giving my already naturally tanned skin a bit of a glow up.
My mind wanted to get the draft of my novel completed on this trip but my body had other ideas.
It’s been waiting for me to slow down so that it could catch up.
I often say that if you don’t make time for rest, then you will be forced to rest and it will be at a time that is most inconvenient to you. This is what I’ve experienced this week but I don’t feel any type of animosity towards it and that’s some significant progress to how I would have reacted to my plans been scuppered in the past.
I realise that this is the first time in a very long time where I’m not living my life on anybody else’s schedule. I haven’t had to wake up and be in a rigid routine to get my movement done ahead of jumping on a Zoom call. I haven’t had to be sat hunched over a computer screen looking at content plans, signing off copy, or researching client based topics with a million and one tabs open at once, and I haven’t had to stress about anything other than making sure to reapply my sunscreen regularly and stay hydrated.
I’ve read one and a half books so far and I can envision that the other 1 and a half I have with me will be completed (or close to) before I hit the Welsh tarmac in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I’ve been joyfully immersing myself in other worlds instead of focusing on building my own.
This holiday is what it has needed to be, not what I’ve wanted it to be. It’s been a chance to take stock of what my body is telling me.
My battery has been running low for some time but I’ve kept it topped up just enough on a daily basis that it’s been something I’ve been able to ignore until the out of office came on and autopilot was turned off.
A life lesson, if you will.
Where I go from here remains to be seen but it’s something I will be taking stock of and doing something about as a matter of urgency when I get home.
xx
Love this Nessa. Unfortunately this is a lesson I have also had to learn (or perhaps I should say fortunately as, hopefully, these life lessons should help us to become better and stronger.