The diary of almost everything

Summer holidays officially started across the Netherlands this week.
You’d think that after the final weeks of the school year, I’d instantly switch into holiday mode. After all, I’d spent the last month running around, answering emails, solving problems, trying to remember seventeen things at once and convincing myself that everything would somehow be finished before the last day.

Instead, I found myself sitting on the sofa on Saturday morning with a cup of coffee, wondering why it didn’t feel like a holiday at all.
The funny thing about summer holidays is that they never seem to arrive the moment they officially begin. After weeks of running at full speed, my calendar suddenly becomes almost empty, yet my mind keeps behaving as if there’s another meeting hiding somewhere that I’ve forgotten about.

I don’t miss the alarm, but I do seem to miss the feeling that I’m actually on holiday.
People often tell me how lucky we are in education with all the school holidays, and they’re absolutely right. We work incredibly hard for them and I know it’s a luxury. Sometimes I wonder how people with five or six weeks of annual leave manage it. Do they instantly slip into holiday mode the moment they lock the office door? Or do they also spend the first few days wandering around the house wondering what they’re supposed to be doing with themselves?

My own brain certainly doesn’t waste any time.
Within the first forty-eight hours it had already decided this was the perfect moment to learn about investing, make a serious retirement plan because apparently turning forty is close enough to start thinking about these things, reorganise every cupboard in my apartment, become a generally more organised human being and, naturally, convince myself that this might finally be the month I win the lottery.
It’s remarkable how many life-changing decisions seem perfectly realistic when you suddenly have a few empty days in your diary.

I’m not even going abroad this summer. Next year, hopefully. This year my cats have scheduled themselves an expensive dental holiday instead, and somehow they managed to do that using my bank account. Considering the bill, I fully expect them to complain if room service isn’t included.

The strange thing about staying home is that you almost have to create your own holiday feeling. If you’re away somewhere, your surroundings do half the work. At home it’s surprisingly easy to slip back into your normal routine without even noticing. Before you know it you’re doing laundry on a Tuesday morning with the enthusiasm of someone who has completely forgotten they’re actually on holiday.

Luckily, I have traditions.
Every summer starts with a good wellness massage and a dinner at my favourite seafood restaurant with a friend who also works in education and has quietly become something of a second mum to me over the years. We always celebrate the beginning of the holidays with mussels, good conversation and the comforting realisation that, somehow, we made it to another summer.
The rest will sort itself out.

I’ll probably end up reading more than I have in months, get a new hobby and watch new series, catch up with a lot of friends and spend as much time at the beach as the Dutch weather allows and write a few more stories like this one.

Because if experience has taught me anything, it’s that holiday mode never arrives when I expect it to.
It always quietly appears somewhere in the middle of week two, usually at the exact moment I stop waiting for it.

-Sophie Quinn