Tuesday 26 June 2012

Holiday blues


While planning for our annual Christmas holiday, I was sent a link by a friend to the “perfect destination”.

And it did look perfect. The crisp white beaches, the turquoise waters, the couple in the advertisement running around laughing (who actually does that?). 

But then I found myself panicking. 

No bars. A handful of restaurants and the odd shop.  A total population on par with the amount of people in my office building.

Uh oh.

Here was a virtually secluded island with nothing to do besides alternate between lying by the ocean and the pool all day, every day. And I was scared. 

“That’s the point”, my friend soothed when I worriedly told her my concerns. “It’s one of those relaxing, isolated getaways where it’s just you and your partner, and there’s nothing to do each day but bask in each other’s company and watch the waves. No iphones, no laptops, no one to talk to but each other.” 

She may as well have said we'd be chained together in a four by four prison cell.

This is going to sound terrible because I love my partner more than anything else – but there’s no way I could last two weeks with just the two of us and the ocean and nothing else in between. 

Sure, I could happily do a few days. Maybe five if I’ve got a good book on me. But after a week, cabin (or resort) fever inevitably creeps up. 

There’s day after day stretching ahead of you, where the limited amount of things to do means the schedule always runs like this: breakfast, pool, sex, lunch, beach, sex, run around laughing – and this takes us to the next day, where it all starts again.  

You’ve probably guessed it already, but I am one of those people who constantly needs to be doing things.
When I’m not doing things, I’m making a list of things to do. 

In short, I am a control freak. Can control freaks relax? Sure they can. Just not on a deserted island.
I need atmosphere, people, music, shops and new restaurants to try together.  I simply can’t have every day the same on a holiday...or I go a bit nuts. 

I’m sure you’re all thinking I need to see a therapist or pull my head out of my ass...but I’m not alone. This has happened to (fictional character, cough) Miranda from Sex and the City.  

On her honeymoon in a cabin in the wilderness somewhere, with no TV and her mobile battery dead, Miranda and her husband are cuddled in bed. 

“Mm this is nice,” he says. 

“Yeah it is,” she agrees. 

After about thirty seconds she asks: “Now what do we do?”

Not content with staring into eachother's eyes all day, Miranda, like me, found it difficult to adjust to doing absolutely nothing.

I’m sure we’ll figure out a happy medium for our holiday, a place that’s somewhere in between New York and nobody-knows-it-because-it’s-miles-from-anywhere. 

In the meantime, I’ve got my list-writing pen poised and ready to go. 

Are you the same? Can you happily do nothing on your holidays?

1 comment:

  1. No way, I need to be out there doing something! I'm a bit like miranda that way :) xx

    PS. another post pleeeeeeeeease!!

    ReplyDelete