Wrap it up.

Phone on do not disturb, watching the ocean, headphones on.

I spent the last week in Side, Turkey with my family and we had so much fun! I have only been back in England for two days but I already don’t want to engage with my responsibilities.

What I find so freeing about being on holiday is how different my day-to-day life looks when I can do whatever I want. I wake up earlier so I can swim at the beach, go for long walks, attempt to learn a new language (I know five phrases in Turkish now), eat meals with my family, take a whole day to just sit and write. Idyllic. My only critique was that we couldn’t go out dancing because their clubs were shut, which makes sense because it was their Winter season, but it was still 22°c. This lifestyle was easy to achieve because all luxuries were paid for beforehand so we were not concerned about our usual expenses, i.e. food and bills. But that made me think, is rest a luxury only very few can afford? We only managed it for seven days because at some point the money runs out and you have to go home.

We all enjoyed our travels, we needed a moment to break the monotony of our lives, but even on holiday, there was only so far that we could “unplug” from reality because your favourite double act, racism and sexism, were ever present. At the resort we were staying at, there were loads of older German people, so I was ready to flex my extremely limited GSCE German wherever I could, but that wasn’t necessary. If you can speak English, you can guess that schokolade means chocolate. Whispers of “schokolade” followed us as we walked around the resort. Often paired with gazes of admiration, like they were so shocked that “people like us” exist, it was crazy. And as for sexism, a few men took it upon themselves to let me know what they thought about my body, and others were confused as to why I wasn’t married at the ripe old age of twenty one and offered ways that they could fix that. No matter where you are in the world, some things just don’t change. 

Back to the positives. Though there were many material things that aided rest on this holiday, so much of the rest I found was through the change of my mind set – I just didn’t allow myself to be consumed by worry. Before the turn of the new year, I like to read through my journal, and as I was looking through this year’s journal, the constant has been fear. Oh my. I just worried about everything. My relationships with people, money, time, the list goes on but I’ll spare you. But when I was away, I was so present, each moment was what it was and I put my energy towards things that fuelled me. I want to maintain that as I move forward into the new year because I genuinely can’t do another year of this lol.

Any who, I want to say thank you for reading my blog, whether it’s your first time (you should read another piece because I really am just chatting today) or if you’ve been here since June (kisses for you) I honestly appreciate it so much, and I’ll be back with more soon!

Take care of yourself and I am wishing you a Happy New Year. Xx