Ghosts of the holiday

Returning to school or work after a relaxing holiday launches the same roller-coaster of emotions every year – excitement, anticipation, and trepidation. I can’t say exactly which of the phases I’m in right now.

My friend has asked that I brace up and ‘grow up.’ This is an aftermath of updating my instant messenger status with the question ‘Why isn’t life a holiday?’ I didn’t have the time to spare that morning, the time that would have had us engaged in an e-fight. Truth be told, it’s a question that’s been on my mind since I was on my return flight back home or better still, since I started my journey back to real life, as I choose to call it.

It definitely felt good during the holidays not to have definite waking or sleeping hours. It felt good running and playing with the children and being a child again myself – with not one care save for what to eat and choice of play. It felt good not working towards any deadlines. Err… alas, I’m back to real life and real life feels strange!

Real life has you waking up when you don’t want to and doing things you should do but would like to abdicate. Real life includes worrying about traffic, domestic shopping and in less than one week, real life will include checking essays, math and printing out homework, real life is going to work and earning a living.

I am not unmindful that taking a break is a privilege for which I am most thankful for, but seeing as I’m not anywhere close to 50 years as yet, I think I am allowed to be childish sometimes.

I’d bet I can hear someone say to me that I can be a Kim Kardashian (highly rated TV reality queen) if I wanted. I can hear you unkindly tell me the usual ‘not all fingers are equal theory,’ I can also hear you tell me, that life is a choice. I can holiday myself through life if I chose (daily gyms, photo shoot sessions, parties, shows, interviews make up her daily routine). True, I can be KK, especially as all that daily fun she has results in $38 million in annual income.

But alas, I’m not Kim; I’m an adult woman who needs to snap back into reality!

I find I’m not the only one being hunted by these holiday ghosts. I’ve been told by many surveys and psychologists that long holidays can make people feel lazy, and unenthusiastic about going back to work. I have been told that no matter how long a holiday is, people always want more. A 2011 survey done in the US for the world’s largest travel site, Trip Advisor, about holiday blues, showed that more than a third of respondents struggled with feelings of melancholy following their return from holiday.

Saying good-bye to relaxation and hello to a full email inbox and new deadlines are never easy. So, it is very common to feel the boredom of the familiar routines of previous years, with the same chores and duties. A little determination is needed, and a focus on the present and future instead of the past can be helpful in easing back into work. Determined I am, and back to work already I am.

In order to get faster into things, life coach Shannah Kennedy advises that it is best to try altering your altitude from the moment your holiday is over, saying: ‘’Start with a new approach as soon as you land at the airport.

‘’Think, I am really excited, I can change things. Ultimately, you should come back from holidays with a full tank and be ready to go.

‘’We can tell ourselves, ‘Oh, we have to wait another year or two,’ or we can be excited. It’s about learning to focus on the positive.’’

Incorporating one enjoyable activity into your week will go a long way towards alleviating any blues, I’m told. It can be a movie, a dinner date, a party or as simple as a soak in a nice, hot bath. I have read that not all of us feel down after our holidays. It must be the ‘long throated’ lazy ones, I muse as I read this life coach’s piece.

‘’It does come with a certain style of thinking,’’ she says. ‘’If your natural disposition is to think that things are going to go wrong and be hard, you are going to be one of the people who will feel more depressed (after your holiday). At the same time, there are many people out there who are quite optimistic.’’

It’s a matter of working out how to tweak your attitude, Kennedy says: ‘’It’s self-talk that we can change and then avoid the blues.’’

And so… I have spoken to myself very sternly and have embraced real life. I will leave the ghosts of the holiday where they belong – in the past.

By: Nkiru Olumide-Ojo