When I put my brain into off mode it’s a bit like going into a fully immersed state of daydreaming entirely disassociated from my normal state — completely removed from my laptop and any decision-making except figuring out which beach to go to on any given day, what to have for breakfast and how to beat my brother and sis in-law at Bananagrams.
My imagination had drifted back. I actually found myself looking at trees and clouds, picturing what kind of creatures and fairy tales sprung from their shapes. I even entertained the idea of doing a children’s story book entirely illustrated with cloud shapes.
On the drives we’d play the story game, where you kick a story off with a random sentence and then the next person carries it on — for some reason all our stories ended up in alien invasions with things like candyfloss sheep and green crumbed chickens running about.
Fin and his cousin’s stories ended up with the parents being eaten.I probably shouldn’t read too much into that.
In addition to reality, I’d lost all sense of time and day of the week. Each day starting at 6am (two-hour time difference in Oz and a house full of excited kids isn’t a great sleep-in combo), and ambling from the pool, to the beach, to games and lazy hot afternoons rotating between laying about reading and cooling off in the pool.
Outside of mum, dad and a couple of close friends, I didn’t even do the Christmas and NY texts and calls this year — I had a full-blown aversion to my phone. There were days where it sat on charge all day, lest I see an email or get sucked into the social media vortex and be triggered into thinking again.
Speaking of being triggered, I actually got full-blown hate going on for those folks posting their non-fiction reading lists for the holidays. Rack off with your self improvement! When I’m checked out, the only thing I want to improve is my pop-up and to find out if the immortal half-human half-vampire Amy becomes human again or if Zero aka Dr Fanning and his blood-sucking Many win.
And then we executed the hectic Nowra mission. It must have been the hustle and bustle of the mall, planning and co-ordinating the big shop and negotiating sale shopping with master 9 and nieces 10 and 8 — my brain kicked back into gear.
A thought occurred about making sure I remembered to file the GST return. I jotted it down, then another thought popped in, I jotted that down, then I got a great idea, I launched into a full-scale pitch to Alex — he was a bit stunned. One minute he was browsing the surf shop sale rack, the next I needed his opinion right now on a new strategy.
Fast forward to my first day back in the office on the 9th and I’d accumulated a to-do list of catchup tasks and great new ideas of 32 items. I’d intended to spend my first two days of headspace scheduling out a programme of work for the year and prioritising projects.
Day three and I’m still just clearing emails. On Saturday I spent three hours at the laundromat catching up on a month’s worth of washing — we live off the grid, solar panels require sunshine and wet clothes need it to dry too.
I also bought four giant plastic containers on Saturday with the intention of spending Sunday afternoon finally clearing the clutter and putting stuff into tidy labelled bins. Instead, after a busy morning at surf lifesaving, I ended up taking a "quick break" with my book and woke up an hour later.
As of 9pm Monday the washing has taken over the lounge and the plastic bins are still sitting in the corner. I have written this article though, good job me.
Being an adult when you’re on holiday is easy. Getting outdoors and doing something physical, being a good parent, spending three hours in the kitchen trying out a new recipe is easy — doing the dishes and helping your hosts with washing, wine in hand, is easy. Everything is easier on holiday, because you don’t have to do any of it really, and you don’t have anything else to do.
I didn’t have to think, which meant when I did suddenly start thinking about things, I enjoyed it, thoughts flowed. Now that I’m back to work and I have to think, I want to escape back to my book. I don’t switch modes very well, I’m in holiday mode or work mode, Mum mode or workout mode, I really don’t have an in-between mode. Finding a way to be several modes in one day, when all you’ve been for three weeks is in fun mode, is really difficult!
So for those of you who like me are struggling to find the motivation to do the things now that you have to do them — it’ll get easier. On days 1 and 2 I didn’t get out of bed till 8am. Day 3 I was up by 5.45am, although I procrastinated on the stuff I was actually supposed to do all day and tried to do all of it in the last 30 minutes.
This year is going to be big, but if the last few days are anything to go by I’m going to need to be more realistic with my daily expectations.
So "expectations" is my New Year’s resolution — I will set more realistic expectations and slowly eat this exciting new 2025 elephant one bite and in one mode at a time.
• Sarah Ramsay is chief executive of United Machinists.
