Never only
Ausgust 17th, 2026
Back from holidays. Why do I always bring too many outfit options, too much reading material, too many intentions of mental and physical exercise, too many hopes of reflection time?
During the last weeks of work before vacation — those weeks that feel like the final reps of an intense workout — I build a vision of what the holiday will be. Usually something out of a Paolo Sorrentino film. It keeps me going, but it's an aspirational trap. It shapes how I then experience the actual holiday, by comparison.
In hindsight, I had a great one. Time well spent with family and friends, amazing beach days, surprisingly good for the North of Portugal, the best fresh fish I could hope for. A beautiful wedding of dear friends, where I reconnected with people I hadn't seen in years. Date nights with my wife, probably some of the last before our second child is born.
But I carried this fixed idea of what the holiday should have been, and it tinted the whole experience — for me, and probably for those around me. I didn't allow myself to decompress and simply enjoy the moment. I'm enjoying it now, looking back: the hot sand, reading the daily newspaper over a coffee and a rissol de camarão at the old-town café, playing in the water with my kid and watching her become a fearless swimmer in just two weeks, teaming with my sister for the barbecues at my parents' house. I feel more on holiday now, writing this with some tropical easy-listening in the background, than I did while I was actually there.
I was enjoying myself the whole time. I was just never only enjoying myself. I was looking ahead, suffering in anticipation of it ending, mourning the holiday I'd imagined but never actually planned. I remained in a strange state of anxiety — the exact thing I needed the holiday to escape from, and didn't.