The First Morning of a Holiday

There is one phrase I hear again and again.

“We finally slept.”

Not:

“We had an amazing time.”

Not:

“The food was wonderful.”

Not:

“We saw so many places.”

“We finally slept.”

And every time, I find myself thinking the same thing.

How tired must we be for sleep to become news.

To wake up feeling rested and feel the need to tell someone about it.

Most people arrive on holiday carrying far more than a suitcase.

They carry responsibilities.

Worries.

Unfinished business.

A constant feeling that something is waiting for them.

And the strange thing is that many of them do not even realise it.

They realise it when they sleep.

When they wake up without an alarm.

When they drink their coffee without checking the time.

When an entire hour passes without rushing towards the next thing.

That is when something begins to return.

Not energy.

Something deeper.

The feeling that you no longer need to stay on alert all the time.

That, for a little while, even for a few days, you can simply exist.

And perhaps that is the real value of a holiday.

Not filling every moment of the day.

But putting down some of the weight you have been carrying for far too long.