There is a strange kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from lack of sleep.
It comes from carrying tomorrow on your shoulders for so long that you forget what today feels like.
Everyone keeps saying,
“You’ll be so ready for this holiday.”
They’re right.
But not in the way they think.
The truth is…
This didn’t start when we accepted an offer on the house.
It didn’t even start when we put it on the market.
It started months before that.
Painting walls.
Touching up woodwork.
Sorting cupboards.
Decluttering drawers I’d ignored for years.
DIY jobs that had sat on the list forever.
Trying to make a house I’d loved for twenty years ready for somebody else’s beginning, whilst quietly preparing myself for the end of mine.
Then came the photographs.
The viewings.
The waiting.
The offers.
The paperwork.
The mortgage.
The advocates.
The emails.
The packing.
The charity bags.
The endless tip runs.
The loft I’d avoided for years.
Every time one job was crossed off, another appeared in its place.
There was never a finish line.
Only another countdown.
Tomorrow we fly to Tenerife.
Five days.
Five whole days.
And today…
I’m shaking.
Not because I don’t want to go.
Because my brain has forgotten how.
Today I have to take Billie to the cattery.
My beautiful moon cat.
She’s eighteen now.
When they’re young, a week apart feels like nothing.
When they’re old…
Every goodbye feels heavier.
My anxious mind keeps trying to write endings that don’t exist.
She’ll probably spend the week judging me from her blanket before eventually accepting my apology in the form of treats.
But love has never been logical.
The bigger the love…
…the louder the worry.
Joel keeps looking around the house saying,
“There’s still so much to do.”
He’s right.
There is.
But I don’t think either of us has really stopped to notice how much we’ve already done.
Not just the packing.
Everything.
Months of living towards one date.
Months of carrying work, children, mortgages, advocates, decorating, decluttering, decisions, money, emotions and uncertainty.
He’s carried so much too.
Work.
Luca.
The move.
Supporting me through every wobble.
Building our future while quietly carrying his own worries.
Sometimes I don’t think he realises how much weight he’s been holding.
And sometimes…
Neither do I.
That’s the cruel thing about anxiety.
It doesn’t hear,
“There’s still work to do.”
It hears,
“You’re not allowed to rest yet.”
As if rest is something that has to be earned by reaching the mythical point where every cupboard is empty, every box is packed and every job is finished.
But life doesn’t work like that.
There will always be another job.
Another email.
Another box.
Another decision.
If I wait until everything is done before I allow myself to breathe…
I’ll never breathe.
The funny thing is…
When we booked this holiday, all I wanted was Kindle and cocktails.
A market.
A spa morning.
Some evening entertainment.
Time with the man I love.
Nothing extravagant.
Just…
Peace.
Yet somehow my mind has turned five days of sunshine into another item on the to-do list.
Another thing I have to get right.
Maybe this holiday isn’t a reward for finishing.
Because we haven’t finished.
We still have Everstead waiting for us.
We still have moving day.
We still have cardboard boxes and furniture and a whole new chapter to build.
Maybe this holiday is something far more important than a reward.
Maybe it’s permission.
Permission to put the lists down.
Permission to remember who Joel and I are when we’re not discussing mortgages, custody arrangements, paint colours or removal vans.
Permission to laugh.
To sleep.
To read.
To sit in the sun with nowhere else we’re supposed to be.
When we come home, the boxes will still be there.
Everstead will still be waiting.
Life will still be waiting.
But hopefully…
We’ll be waiting too.
Not the exhausted versions of ourselves who’ve spent months surviving.
The two people who fell in love in the middle of ordinary days.
The two people who have fought so hard to build this life together.
Maybe this isn’t a holiday from moving house.
Maybe it’s a reminder that the whole reason we’re moving… is to build a life worth occasionally stepping away from.
And perhaps that’s the lesson I’m trying to learn.
Not that everything has to be finished before I can rest.
But that sometimes, resting is what gives me the strength to finish.