Monthly Musing – July 2024 – Post holiday blues

“I wish I was back in Nepal.”

Not so small daughter has post-holiday blues, and the boring familiarity of Winwick and her same old, same old life is not cutting it for her.  Even the thought of going to university in a new and exciting city in a month or so is nothing compared to the buzz of a new and exciting city half way across the world; our overcast and humid days haven’t been anything like the humidity in Nepal or looking down on the clouds from the top of the world, and reminiscing over shared experiences with friends from her trip just isn’t the same as recounting them to parents, especially when you have to keep saying, “You really had to be there”.

It’s something that we’ve all experienced if we’ve been lucky enough to have a break away from home that took us right out of our usual lives and into something completely different.  It doesn’t always have to have been at the other side of the world either; even a short local trip can still invoke that sense of longing for things to be different, and as hard as it is at the time, it’s actually something to be very grateful for.

The alternative for us could have been that not so small daughter couldn’t wait to get home, to get back to her same old, same old life and forget about the trip as soon as possible.  That nothing would be different and her experiences in the brightly coloured, bustling city of Kathmandu, the quieter lakeside city of Pokhara, of planting trees high up a mountain to help create a forest that will be here long after even she has gone, trekking up more stairs than she ever wants to see again in her lifetime and making friendships that will last far longer than airport goodbyes would be quickly forgotten, almost as if they never happened.

Instead, she’s had an adventure that she didn’t want to end.  It will help to colour and shape her life forever – much as big daughter’s trip to Peru in 2016 has done for her – and I think that post-holiday blues are important to remind us that there is so much more out in the world for us to see and do than we often think.  Lost in the day to day, we can forget what makes our souls sing and any reminder that life can be different, even for a short while, gives us the opportunity to make choices about what we want to do in the future.

Same old, same old provides a base and often the means for us to go and explore, and I think it’s important that we have that to return to, however disappointing it can feel when we first put our suitcases or rucksacks down in the hallway.  If we were constantly travelling, constantly experiencing the new, then even that would feel same old, same old after a while and we would become overloaded with the new experiences and not appreciate them as much.

Not so small daughter is already talking about plans for more travelling, and we are excited to see where she goes to next.  The post-holiday blues will fade but the spark for adventure has been lit, and we hope it never goes out.

 

A white domed temple roof with a golden spire. There is a large pair of eyes painted on the spire. A monkey sits on a ledge next to the white dome

Swayambhunath, monkey temple, Nepal. Source: not so small daughter

 

 

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2 Responses

  1. Sarah Murray says:

    I know how she feels, just getting over my post holiday blues. It may help if she wrote down her experiences and shared them in a blog post 🙂 One should never find an antidote for the travel bug. All the best X

    • winwickmum says:

      Ha ha, I am fast approaching nag level about this blog post but I am sure it will here soon! 🤣 I like the idea that you should never find an antidote, and I think that in all honesty, you’re right xx

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