The diary of almost everything

Near the end of every holiday, I inevitably start fantasising about early retirement despite being in my thirties, reasonably healthy, and fully aware that this is financially irresponsible behaviour.

Not because I hate my job, because I actually like my work very much, but because holidays have an annoying tendency to remind me that life contains many enjoyable things that do not involve Outlook calendars, deadlines, or pretending another Teams meeting could not simply have been an email.

And unfortunately, once that thought enters your brain, it settles in comfortably.

Earlier today, a friend called me with the sentence: “Can you come over? I’ve just been hit by a child on a fucking fatbike.”
Which, now that I think about it, is probably one of the most modern ways imaginable to start an adult friendship conversation.
She then immediately followed it up with: “Anyway, I finally have a free hour, so I’m absolutely not letting a child on a fatbike take that away from me. We’re still getting coffee.”
And honestly, I respected the commitment to the free hour.

So naturally we ended up sitting outside with coffee, her balancing an ice pack on her knee while we somehow moved from minor traffic injuries to discussing whether any of us are emotionally built to work until nearly seventy.
That is the thing about certain friendships, you do not need daily contact.
You just sit down together and within ten minutes someone is laughing, someone else is suddenly emotional over something neither of you expected to talk about, and before long you are discussing childhood patterns, work stress, retirement fantasies, and whether opening a tiny beach café would realistically bankrupt you within six months.

Which, to be fair, it absolutely would.

The strange thing is that neither of us actually dislikes working.
I enjoy parts of my job! I like the chaos of education, the humour, the strange conversations, and the occasional moment where a child accidentally says something more insightful than most adults on LinkedIn.

But enjoying your work and wanting your entire existence to revolve around work are two very different things.
The dangerous thing about holidays is not relaxation itself, but the reminder that life can also consist of mornings without alarms, long walks, afternoons in the sun, and entire days where nobody urgently needs something from you every six minutes.
And once you remember that version of life exists, it becomes difficult to completely forget it again.

At one point we started talking about her partner, who apparently does not have these conversations at all; he really likes working.
Of course he enjoys holidays too because he is still human, but he also simply enjoys working and does not spend random afternoons fantasising about escaping to a slower life near the sea.
Which we both found admirable and slightly suspicious because honestly, I rarely hear men talk this way.

Most women I know eventually reach a point where they start questioning the balance a little more openly, especially once life becomes an endless combination of work, responsibilities, social obligations, relationships, and trying to remember whether there are still clean socks somewhere in the house.
Meanwhile some men seem perfectly capable of continuing forward indefinitely without emotionally collapsing over a cappuccino on a sunny terrace.
Remarkable.

I also think our generation ended up somewhere awkwardly in the middle.
Our parents mostly grew up with the idea that fulltime work was simply what adults did, while people younger than us increasingly seem to question whether they even want that life at all. Some barely want to work fulltime in the first place, which honestly fascinates me because my first thought is always: “But then how are you planning to buy a house?”

And yet I understand them too.
Because I like earning well, I enjoy the freedom money gives me, and I have also become quite attached to a lifestyle that unfortunately insists on financing itself every month.
At the same time, I am also very aware that I have a remarkable talent for hesitating endlessly about things that would probably make me happy.
I can spend weeks debating whether I should book a holiday while another part of me is already mentally lying on an Italian beach ordering overpriced pasta.
So perhaps the problem is not work itself.
Perhaps the problem is that my brain enjoys analysing life more than participating in it sometimes.

A different friend recently gave me the deeply annoying but very sensible advice that most of these fantasies eventually come down to choices. You can absolutely decide to work less or live differently, but then you also have to accept the consequences that come with those choices.
And unfortunately she is also right.
I enjoy freedom, but I also enjoy nice clothes, good food, my apartment, spontaneous purchases I absolutely do not need, and not having to panic every time one of my cats suddenly develops an expensive medical hobby.

At one point we even started discussing investing, because apparently this is what happens in your thirties. One minute you are discussing opening a beach bar, the next someone is explaining index funds to you as if spreadsheets are the gateway to inner peace.

And somewhere underneath all these conversations about retirement plans and escaping modern life, there is usually something else hiding too.

For me, at least, it is often less about wanting a completely different life and more about wanting more freedom inside the life I already have.
Because sometimes these fantasies appear exactly when something underneath them feels uncomfortable. Pressure. Expectations. Situations where you suddenly feel watched or forced to perform in ways that pull you slightly away from yourself.
And whenever that happens, some part of my brain immediately suggests that perhaps I should disappear into a cottage near the sea and arrange flowers for a living.

Which sounds peaceful, although realistically I would probably still have these moments.

Still, days like this help.
A long walk home in the sun, ducks floating around without a single productivity goal in sight, my cat snoring later that evening, and the reminder that life is usually happening in much smaller moments than the ones we spend most of our time worrying about.

Maybe none of us actually want to stop working entirely. Maybe we just want a life where work fits around living a little better instead of the other way around.

And perhaps that is why these conversations always return eventually, because underneath all the overthinking we are usually asking the exact same question:
how do we build a life that still feels like ours while we are busy living it?

-Sophie Quinn