The Vacation Hangover #MondayMusings

The plane touched down at 3:05pm. We had landed before time. But there was nothing to be happy about. I patiently got down and walked with the co-passengers. The moment the flight had landed, it had felt strangely lonely. The feeling hadn’t left me as I entered the restroom to freshen up, only to notice that tears had left my eyes red. I don’t know why, after all these years, this time it felt like the initial times when I would cry my heart out while leaving for hostel. This time that feeling, which had decided to come back after so many years, disagreed to part with me.

After few minutes of waiting for the luggage to arrive, which felt like forever, I walked out of the airport and hired an auto. In no time I was back at home. Unlocking the door and having the whole home for yourself isn’t the best of the feelings when you are back from a vacation, especially when you long for some company to shrug off the feeling of loneliness. I was missing home and even those hostel days when friends used to come and pick me up from the station whenever I came back from home. That was a ritual we always followed whenever someone came back after a visit back home. I missed that feeling badly. There was no one to welcome me back with a warm hug. Nothing or no one to look forward to, except the empty house and the regular office thereafter. Disheartened, I resorted to the virtual means to find the company of friends but found none free to talk or chat. Million words were forming in my head, more than ready to give me company but I lazily pushed them away to the back of my mind. I just didn’t want to type/write anything, I wasn’t in mood and was also psychologically tired from the traveling.

The time I was home, my mind had been eerily calm. No thoughts of disturbance, no worries of future, no tension of finances, no fears of uncertainty, no risk about career, nothing knocked the doors of my mind. I just ate, chatted with mom, read and slept. All four activities in loop for whole of 10 days with the only exception of shopping a day or two. How good it felt to be at home with everyone showering all the love on me, I suddenly felt the void as the walls of my empty home seemed to be echoing all my thoughts. One by one, all those mentioned thoughts started popping up. Before I knew it I had slept off and woke up with the Monday Blues. With determination I woke up, left the bed and got ready to leave for work. All this while trying to smile my best, shooing away those thoughts.

Later during the day, which was going as slowly as ever, I found myself zoning in and out of the conversations during the lunch as and when those thoughts enveloped me. My thoughts constantly looking for an escape but couldn’t find any. But there wasn’t much I missed on to. While the conversations went on in the mother tongue, I knew nothing about, I quietly receded into my own shell. That was a usual daily practice, I was getting used to now, but it still bothered me sometimes. May that’s what made me miss Bangalore, that all were equal and no particular language dominated. But take it or leave it, that’s also the only hour of the day at work I look forward to, because that’s time when the day seems a little brighter and makes the place a little less gloomy. But then I guess, it’s almost the same story everywhere. Work is work after all, it has to feel like it.

As I try to settle down again and until this hangover of vacation wears off, I know this thought cloud will keep on hovering over my head and might rain a few times before I make peace with it. I don’t know why it seems to be getting harder to be in this city now, it had gone so smoothly the first time I landed here almost three months ago. What is it that I’m unable to put my finger on, that’s causing me the trouble this time. Can a little vacation do this to you? May be it happens with everyone and I’m over-thinking as usual.. Suddenly I found my curious self Google the term ‘Vacation Hangover’. Yes, there it was. There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to Post-Vacation Blues! Woah! So, I’m definitely not alone in this! Hurrah!! This discovery did make me feel a little better! 😛 It says, best cure is to plan the next vacation. So, I am off to beat these Blues with a new plan, to find something to look forward to! 😀 And for everything else, there is chocolate cake! 😀