Sitting here waiting for my flight back to Canberra after my holiday and starting to feel anxiety creeping back in. I’m really tired, because even enjoyable things are tiring (sometimes the most tiring things actually). The weather back in Canberra is cold. And I’m back to work on Monday and I don’t feel ready for it. And it has been just such a relief to not worry or feel stressed for a week — I almost don’t realise how I feel that way 100% of the time until I can stop. The absence of stress and worry is the more unusual thing to feel for me, and it only really seems to occur on holidays.

But unfortunately everything I want costs money, and employment is where money comes from, and the stress related to it is part of the package, so there’s little choice here about the holiday coming to an end. Plus the longer I stay away from it the further I will get behind. So back we go.

I was planning to sit and contemplate my future somewhere by the beach on this trip like some giant middle-aged cliche, but I just didn’t. And it was great to not think and worry about things. So great. A couple of decisions popped into my head during the week though. I have decided to try to eat a bit better again – more wholefoods and plant-based. As I’ve gotten more tired and more stressed through the year I’ve gotten lazier with food prep. Try being the operative word — fatigue is not a friend of healthy living oftentimes.

I have also decided that my next priority to save for needs to be a puppy. I have my heart set on a particular breed that should work well for my lifestyle and apartment living (yes I know I should adopt not shop etc but I know what my needs and circumstances are, and nobody in my family has ever not had a pet for the entirety of its life cycle, we are very dedicated to them), and I have to make some modifications to the apartment as well to add a dog door so that’s another cost. So it is definitely a save up and do project. But I really need something to care for, a motivation to get outside a little bit more, and something to love and be loved by. Being sick and tired can be lonely.

And also to try to be near or in water more often, as it is one of the things that really helps calm me. Natural waterways of course being much better than the echoing screams of kids at the indoor pool. Easier said than done in Canberra with its proclivity for being frigid cold for a large part of the year, but will try.