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Holllidddaayyyyy!!!

I’m having a holiday and so far I’m….
… really struggling, actually.

I mean, it’s not a going-away-holiday… not yet.  There will be a little flourish of going away with my Mum in a few weeks time, taking the train to France for a coupla days, and it’ll be awesome, but until then and for the first time in… oooh… seven or so years… I’m having a very deliberate not-doing-stuff, not-doing-theatre, trying-not-to-work break.  And it’s tough.  I’m getting quite tense.

Technically it’s not yet an actual holiday.  Today, for example, I’m going to a playreading for a production which I might be lighting (‘might’ being the operative word – they might not want me, I might not want them etc.) and tomorrow morning I have another meeting with a director, about a possible future show.  And another meeting with another director next week.  And several gigs to light, of a musicy nature.  At the same time I have contracts to chase and correct, an LX agent to find, and a few hundred years worth of admin to sort out that has been kinda neglected what with all the theatrey/writery stuff.  But!  Soon that will be in hand and then there’ll be…

… well….

… nothing.  It’s very odd.  No obligations.  No edits.  No plans to draw, no rehearsals to attend just…

… rest.  And relaxation.  And other really stressful things.

I’m not sure I’m gonna cope.

Thankfully, to alleviate the stress of this situation, I’ve drawn up to-do lists.  They include painting my flat, putting a door onto the living room (I have the door, the hinges and all the tools, it’s just that fitting doors is really hard work), reading all the books, learning Chinese, swimming lots (SPONSOR OUR SWIMATHON!) doing all the escrima, learning how to cook a wide range of awesome things (I’m particularly excited by laksa and custard tarts) and maybe even actually going to the theatre as a member of the paying public, rather than with my skeptical ‘well we’re in trouble now’ lighting designer face on.  But I’m aware that doing all of this doesn’t necessarily count as stopping, and stopping is something I really struggle with.

It’s just…

… well….

… surely I should be doing stuff?

I mean…

… surely there’s always stuff to do.

Just sitting still is.

Really.

Kinda challenging.  But!  Here’s how I think I shall make it work, and that is through the medium of baking.  Because baking is relaxing, right?  Baking is something you do on a holiday, yes?  Baking counts as taking time off but more importantly, it’s something that feels active, right?  It’s a skill set, which I will be improving!  It is, frankly, a godblessed relief, because if I wasn’t baking stuff, I’d just be sat around and that is unacceptable.  Pathologically, borderline psychotically, unacceptable.

And when that fails, I may be forced to fall back on desperate-relaxation-method-no.2 and just write the next damn novel.