Holidays are such a great time to refocus aren’t they? Time away from the daily grind of household chores, bedtime routines and meal plans. There’s nothing like a holiday to remind you of the things you hold dear in life and give you impetus to make a list of resolutions for new ways to live when you get home. Or maybe that’s just me.
When you read this post I’ll be in France, but I wrote it at 7.55pm last Tuesday evening. By the time of writing I’ve spent ten hours at my laptop. My daughters are with my parents who took them out for the day and kept them overnight so I could get a load of work done. Typically, I haven’t finished all the work that I’d scheduled for the day and I’m still staring down a black hole of things to do before we go away on Friday.
But this holiday is one with a difference. For the first time since Frog was a baby we’re going away on a trip that’s nothing to do with blogging. I should get one thing straight before I write this: we love going on adventures to new places and relish every blogging review opportunity we take up. But, this year, we decided to do something a bit different.
For the first time in a long time I feel the need to get away – to really get away. I want to get away from a life online, if only for a couple of weeks. I want to get back to Instagramming things simply because I feel like it. I want to experience time with my girls face to face, not through the lens of a Snapchat filter or looking out for a funny anecdote to share on Twitter. I want to leave Facebook alone and not worry about what I’m missing. These are basic joys of being on holiday – getting away from it all, switching off – that you simply don’t get on a review trip.
Review trips are fun and give you amazing opportunities to experience things you might not otherwise get to experience, but they’re also work, as a blogger.
I’ve worked a lot this year. As well as writing this blog, which is monetised, I write for various magazines and websites, edit the family interiors site Roost and do all the associated things that come with being a freelancer who makes money working online: Instagram (two feeds), Twitter, Facebook etc. All with no childcare. When you’re “on” all the time, keeping your eyes open for new content, it can be exhausting.
I want to see my kids covered in icecream, splashing each other in the pool, wearing cute outfits, without the feeling that I need to capture every second. Yes, these are memories I’ll keep, but what use are the memories if I’m only living them by looking back via a YouTube video and can only remember them via the haze of a camera lens? It’s not the same.
This sounds like a post from a burned out blogger, which I suppose at the time of writing I am. However, I’m not so cynical that I want to give it all up. Far from it. I love what I do and the life we’ve created in Devon. But, like every other person who works in any “normal” industry, I’m craving some time off.
And so, things will be a bit more quiet around here over the next few weeks. Of course I might decide to blog lots while I’m away, I might still go on Instagram every day, I might even film my holiday and do a video when I get back. But it’ll be under my own terms. I won’t stress about photo angles, or put pressure on my family to be in the game if they’re not up for it.
The point is, this is an opportunity to refocus, make some plans about the year ahead that I’m determined to stick to and to really step away from the outside world and into the world of real life where my family live.
Have a wonderful summer, wherever you are and whatever you’re up to.
I hope you all had a wonderful break!