Damn my Pessimism!

I'm on holiday.

I wish my brain could be on holiday with me.

I've got one week's leave before beginning a new job. One week - seven days. Nice, right?

Not really. See, in my mind I've reduced that count to five days - cause you don't count the weekend. I already have weekends. And then, I'm a mother with two sons. They're not on holiday: but they do return from school at 3.30pm each day. And I drop them at school at about 8.30am every morning. So I'm only on holiday from 9am to 3.30pm, for five days.

That's a smaller window of time. What with lunch, playing around on my social networks, doing the odd bit of housework, trying to exercise, going to the dentist, doing some long overdue gardening and getting lost in online banking ... that leaves me precious little time to do Holiday Things.

What are Holiday Things?

Why, that would be: walking on the beach. Reading a novel. Sipping cocktails. Going outlet mall shopping. Having a massage. Going out for a latte. Rolling over in the morning and going back to sleep. Visiting little antique stores or bookshops I've never seen before ...

How am I supposed to squeeze that in?

My brain leapt to this pessimistic calculation almost immediately on deciding to have a week off. The joy was shaved in two (or five, or ten, or whatever the calculation is).

Why can't I just let good enough alone? Why can't a week .. be A Week?