It only occurred to me the other day, but I think this year I had my first actual holiday. Of course, I’ve been on holiday plenty before (hell, I was at uni for three and a half years, where you spent more time on holiday than in semester), but the week I took off after Xmas really felt like for the first time I could remember where I really let myself relax properly.
Why was this? At first I couldn’t work it out, but then I realised it was because I am actually so busy. Past holidays I’ve always promised myself I would use the time to start a project: animation, photography, writing, drawing, stroke of genius, world domination. The usual. This time though, I already had so many things on the go that I didn’t need to tell myself I would use the break to make a start, I already had. Somehow last year, in between moving house, settling in to a new job and various personal distractions I managed to start two blogs (including all the technical back end knowledge that went with that), to get back into photography and to start attending all manner of events around Melbourne to really extend my creative/technical skills. When holiday time came round, there was no question about doing anything other than some serious relaxing.
What I have learnt from this is not to wait until you “have time” to start what you really want to. The projects you really want to start will always fit into the cracks in your life, and once they start to grow they will expand and push out the less important stuff.
