Why don’t holidays last forever?

The Eid holiday has passed so quickly that it has left my head reeling. Why don’t holidays last forever?

I woke up in the morning yesterday and looked drearily outside. It was only seven in the morning but people were warming up their cars and I could see my neighbours’ faces looking gloomy as they prepared to go to work.

I let out a long groan that nearly gave a heart attack to the cat who made its home in my garden. It is alright for you, my furry friend, I told the animal, you can lie all day under that tree with no worries. Some of us have email reminders coming from everywhere to go back to work.

Talking about work colleagues, they are kind of people who don’t take deadlines kindly. They would write brisk messages that say,” send it asap” or “let’s have it at the earliest.”

We don’t need to go anywhere, camping or even fly off to a foreign country to feel good. Spending short breaks at home can be a real holiday because venturing outdoors is like being at work. Anyway, short holidays are always hectic and they leave you more tired than normal working days.  At least that is true for many people.

On closer scrutiny, I find public holidays are more than a break. All you may need is to remove the mental ‘working cap’ you have been wearing on normal days and put on a new one. This way, you remove your old personality and transform yourself into a new person. You can feel the new lightness in yourself because mentally, you shed the weight of responsibility away.

Hopefully, when the holiday is over, you can become a new person. A better version of yourself and you may feel good about yourself. The only problem is that, when you are back to your office, you must not allow yourself to let the old stress in.

Most of you would say, ‘that is better said than done.’ Why? Because while holidays may give us an excuse to walk away from the old routines, they never define us or restructure who we are. So we need to prepare ourselves mentally when we come back so not to create stress but to be in complete harmony where we left off.

I know what I am going to do in the next Eid holiday. I have got it all figured it out. I would stay at home. I would pretend I have lost my memory and I would have no recollection of anything. If my wife shows concern, I would look at her as if I had never seen her before. I would even ask loudly,” what is this woman doing in my house?”

When my editors send me reminders, I would write back,” write it yourself this time!”

This way, I can sit outside in my garden, talking to the ungrateful cat and watch the birds fight each other for food. With any luck, I would even have the courage to demolish that large nest of wasps. In other words, I would do nothing during the entire blessed break. I will also ignore the bills that accumulate on the hall’s table and delay the payments.