Holiday Rest

When you go on holiday, do you relax or do you cram in as much activity as you can in the hope of going 'extreme' for four weeks before returning to a less than extreme job or occupation? Or, can you relax and find time to rejuvenate?

If you are like me, you are lead a busy life full of uncertainly, worry and hussle. Constantly changing and adapting, it is important to take some time out to rest and recuperate. I know I don't do it enough. This month I am on holiday back in Australia, seeing family and finding some time to rest. In fact, this post comes at a time when I have not been doing much but looking after the kids, swimming and sitting around eating too much! It showed me that I can find some time to rest. I don't need to fill my days with too much.

We are staying near Byron Bay in an area we are familiar with, so there is no need to rush. I see now why my parents liked to go to the same caravan park for holidays. There is no need to see anything. Just to find space to relax. No tourist stuff. I am grateful for this insight as now perhaps I can plan future holidays with this in mind. Even find space eventually to take myself to a lodge for a weekend and do nothing but recharge. To stop and take a 'holiday'. Time to contemplate, reflect and see where I am, in this moment of my life. Too often we move from one stage to the next without such reflection. This is why I liked gap years now. I never had one graduating in 1996. They were unheard of, instead you went out to work or went on a schoolies event getting drunk every night for a week. I chose work and went to my families plant farm. No rest for the wicked. My younger cousins are now all routinely taken a gap year to travel, plan and see where their hearts lie.

As I get older, I see the value in this rest. Recently, my father visited me in Austria and asked me 'When do you stop?' At that moment, I was getting the kids to bed so I mumbled an answer and kept going, but this question has stuck in my mind and since I have started to find time. Every so often now, I take night where I don't have to do something, to achieve something and try to move forward. Like a creek or river, there are pockets that are outside the flow, where water finds rest. It can be momentary but they exist. In life too, we need to find time to rest. To appreciate music, art, culture. As I write this post, I am listening to a lovely Spotify Chill Classical playlist and really enjoying the soulful serenity in the music. Music begging me to 'chill'. To stop, rest and be in this moment.
Find some music, a park or a place where you can stop. Holiday there for a short time like a bend in a flowing river and retreat from the world. Take a break and some time reflect, recharge and regenerate. If I can try, so can you.