Crashing back to everyday life

Humans have long been tagged as "animals of customs", but I only agree to that in the sense that we end up repeating our routines out of convenience and economy of effort, whereas most animals have their routines set in their genes, imprinted and inescapable. And yet, like all the other animals, we also find comfort in knowing what is the next thing to be done rather than having to constantly figure out our agenda on the fly. However, routine can also grind us eventually, which is why we resort to activities that interrupt our well-established practices. "Vacation" means literally "to empty your schedule", when we are "on leave" we have "left our work behind" and so on with many other expressions.

Photo: piqsels

This weekend we took a short trip to see some friends, and thereby we completely broke with the weekend routine. School homework had to be advance to Thursday or early Friday afternoon, laundry was delayed by a couple of days, and instead we saw these many new places, talked to people that we had not met for a long time and had a great time in general.

One remarkable consequence of the holidays is that you have to eventually come back, and the return is very often much harder than the usual routine, because there are many things that continue to need attention even if you are not around, so when you come home to you have to cover the usual routine plus the delayed tasks. The same thing happens with problematic situations: the leaky tap, the squeaky door, they have all been waiting to be repaired for weeks but, as long as you are in the routine, you can promise yourself that you will fix them tomorrow and not deal with them today. But the day you return from vacation all these problems become suddenly so present, and the urge to have them fix is big. Indeed the same applies to uncomfortable relationships: it is well documented that the return from the holidays is a frequent trigger for divorce.

Luckily, the only consequences for us coming back were the delayed housework and the exhaustion linked to the endless activity and the less-than-optimal sleeping conditions. Otherwise, the kids have been back to school, I was in the office in the morning and Karen was back to her graphical design. It will take us a couple of days to get re-adjusted but that will be all. I hope you have a nice start into the week and I will see you tomorrow!