Re-entry, With Minor Turbulence

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere is no gentle way back from a holiday. You can try to wake up early, eat a sensible breakfast and pretend that yesterday’s mee rebus never happened, but the body knows. It spent three days being told nothing mattered very much, and now it’s being asked to believe otherwise.

The morning made no allowances for any of that. It was busy in the scattered, slightly ungrateful way that first days back tend to be. Nothing was difficult on its own, but everything wanted attention at once, like a queue of people who have each been told they’re next. I spent the first couple of hours chasing loose ends I’d quite forgotten I’d left loose, which is the real cost of going away. The holiday is free. The catching up is not.

I’ll admit to a brief, uncharitable moment around mid-morning when I wondered whether the break had been worth it. That’s the post-holiday trap: you blame the rest for the rush that follows, rather than the rush that was always going to be there. I talked myself out of it, mostly.

And then, as it usually does if you leave it alone long enough, the day began to sort itself out. Things found their places. The noise settled into something closer to a rhythm, and I remembered, somewhat to my surprise, that I quite like the work when it isn’t shouting at me.

The rest of the day was fully booked, start to finish, with no gaps worth the name. I find I don’t mind a full day nearly as much as a fragmented one. A packed schedule at least has the decency to be honest about itself. You know where you stand, which is generally on your feet, and there’s a kind of clarity in not having time to wonder what to do next.

Lunch was the sort eaten with one eye on the clock. I won’t describe it, partly out of discretion and partly because there’s nothing to describe. After the weekend’s standard, it would only embarrass everyone involved.

I was back home a little after six. Not late, exactly, but late enough for the light to have given up on the day before I had. There’s a particular feeling to walking through the door after the first day back: not exhaustion, more a pleasant flatness, like a balloon that has decided against floating anywhere in particular.

The evening asked nothing of me, and I gave it exactly that. No plans, no errands, no admirable use of free time. Just sitting, a bit of quiet, and the satisfaction of having got the hardest day of the week out of the way on its first attempt.

There is something to be said for a day that starts badly and ends well. It makes a better story than one that is merely fine throughout. Tomorrow, presumably, will be a normal day. I find I’m rather looking forward to normal.