Holiday. Celebrate.

I bluster and I huff and I puff and I practice my sardonic glare, and most of the time I have a handle on the world enough to have a point, I think. The world – this life – is ridiculous and arbitrary and comical and fierce, and going in with eyes open is the best buffer. And when the status quo of our immediate world is held, we can carry away to thinking awareness is a defence.
But the universe has a habit of spotting the sprig of hubris.

The universe loves to wield an axe.

I am supposed to be overseas right now, adding the final glaze of tan in the kiln of a Pacific island. It was to be a four week reward to myself for having busted my ass for ten months running a business – a business that in so many ways I loved but that killed my creative urge and netted me substantially less of a salary than I had managing a video store a few years back. It was a reward to myself for having the courage to let go of security and pursue my dream to write. I was thumbing my nose at the financial doom and gloom because I had a higher calling. I’d made enough false starts – now was the time for me to make a fist of the freelance life. The Pacific jaunt was symbolic of that resolve.

I’m fundamentally a disorganised person, but with the departure date looming I was more shambolic than usual. I had failed to make so many of the necessary preparations for an overseas trip. The big things were taken care of – I sent in my passport application with plenty of time, and got injected with a handful of arm-numbing vaccines against unspeakable diseases. But I hadn’t booked any accommodation let alone done any research on the place, didn’t have a backpack, and had nothing resembling an itinerary. I hadn’t even finalised who would look after my cat two days before I was due to leave.

I wasn’t ready for this trip. And, it slowly dawned on me, I wasn’t looking forward to this trip. Even to an island paradise, travelling on your own is hard work. It takes gumption and a certain optimistic, cavalier approach. I was feeling more anxious than cavalier. I didn’t want to go.

Then my passport didn’t come through. For no apparent reason the passport office fucked up my application and it hadn’t turned up a fortnight after it was due. I called to track it down and wasn’t given any explanation, just excuses. Sometimes it happens. There are no guarantees. The dog ate it. You can’t hurry it up. You can’t come and get it. Sorry. So despite the fact that 99% of the population get their passports within the time specified, due to powers beyond apparently anyone’s control my passport would not arrive until the week after I was due to fly out. I was their monkey of the month. Since the tickets were a bargain-basement once-ever-special deal I couldn’t change the booking or get a refund. I couldn’t go on holiday.

Relief swept over me like locusts on a wheat field. I was surprised at the release I felt. I had been pressuring myself so much to let go of my uncertain future and have fun no matter what.
I wasn’t anxious about travelling on my own overseas, but the trip had come to represent the line in the sand between my old life and new, and I wasn’t ready for that definitive break. I was – and am – terrified of the next stage of my life, the one where I grind away at a future that will probably never pay off, ending in poverty, depression and in all likelihood my own prostitution. The trip became symbolic, a initially supposed to be a celebration of the decision to move on and a reward for being brave enough to make it. Time will tell, but I know myself and the uncertainty over my future would’ve made the kava especially cheek sucking.

Of course I might have been anguishing over nothing. My future might be brighter than I could dared to have dreamed. Perhaps I would have touched down in Tonga and felt the weight of the world slip seamlessly off my shoulders, revelling in the local hospitality and the tranquil pace of island life. In hindsight the trip away might have been the best thing that could possibly happen to me.

Still, holidays shouldn’t be so hard, particularly before they even start. It does seem like poetic justice that while I was busy turning a relaxing holiday into a metaphor for the worst case scenario for my future, forces outside my control were conspiring to take the option away from me anyway.

Update: Crazy geological tectonic shenanigans in the Tongan archipelago – earthquakes triggering deep sea volcano eruptions sending fierce plumes of smoke and ash into the air, according to some reports totally blocking out direct sunlight across the whole chain of islands. I take it all back universe. Sometimes you know best…