Shreya Sen-Handley | The Other Side Of Breaks: Fun, Frenetic, Frustrating

It’s July, just over halfway into the year, yet it feels like we’ve lived through five. Because, goodness, hasn’t it been busy! With two children sitting their board exams, the elder also on the cusp of university, and the helluvalotta extracurricular activities that having sprogs bring, not forgetting their grandparents who are increasingly in need of greater support themselves, it’s frankly been frenzied. That’s before I even grapple with the demands of our jobs, upkeep and admin for the home and family, and a multitude of middle-aged maladies. You know the feeling!

Amidst all this, there’s never a good time to unwind and reset, but don’t we ALL need a break? WH Davies said it best, “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” I rather plenty of shut-eye instead but the principle stands. Yet, what really is a break?

Unfortunately, ‘breaks’ often lead to more activity than less. Especially if you’re of the school of thought that “a change is as good as a rest”, advocating immersion in pursuits that are different — skydiving, bungee jumping, dancing the night away — but just as numerous! Or your break wouldn’t be Instagram-worthy.

Oh sure, at this time of the year, social media’s full of burnished influencers lying languidly back on beautiful beaches. But while their minds are undoubtedly on a break (aren’t they always, I hear someone cattily say — could be me), their bodies are hard at work behind the scenes. With hourly workouts, endless drilling from nutritionists and personal trainers, airbrushing and nips and tucks, plus, on-trend stuff I’m clueless about, bookending those sumptuous snaps you’re actually allowed to see. YOLO and all that couldn’t be more true, but unwatched, unkempt, unhindered downtime is not its flip side but complementary. Ignore what persuasively dimpling Jon Bon Jovi once proclaimed — that he’ll “live while he’s alive and sleep when he’s dead” — he’s thought better of it himself.

Our own breaks are incredibly fun but also rather frenetic. We’ve covered stunning Barcelona, Paris and Berlin on foot. Driving to every idyllic nook and corner of Britain, we’ve climbed ruins, run into waves, and rambled over meadows. Last year we even managed the dizzying heights of the Himalayas and the glories they offer. Each of our exhilarating adventures have given us the fondest of memories to cherish, but rarely a moment of rest. Holidays, jolly-days, golly-days, would describe them well, but they definitely weren’t BREAKS.

Alternative takes on breaks sound equally taxing. Ross’s idea of a break in ‘Friends’ was to get jiggy with someone other than Rachel. Bridget Jones’s mini-breaks are always about d…mating. Whilst hedonistic American ‘spring breaks’ are the Roman orgies of today. And though this tired working parent’s fantasy breaks involve as much time horizontally inclined, none of it will be spent awake.

Could our misunderstanding of breaks stem from the misleading word itself, so busy that it’s pressed into service in far too many ways? Each scenario above, for example, is a surefire formula for break-ups, and heartbreak! None of which us packhorse sorts desire in the slightest, wanting our husbands/wives and lives quite unchanged, but with a surfeit of spans to sit back and shoot the breeze with them. So, far from looking to break anything on holiday, neither hotel windows nor television sets (like Jagger and his bandmates), and never a lucky leg; sleeping through all the hijinks is the new holy grail.

You wouldn’t want to break the bank either to fund that holiday because breathers, by definition, aren’t permanent. Being a mere interlude in the business of everyday, you inevitably return to earth with a bump in the end. And wouldn’t returning to nothing in the larder put you in a hump too? As for breaking the mould on vacay, trying too hard to be avant-garde is anything but restful!

Break dancing is another massive no-no, or we’re back to breaking bones on holiday. Being laid up not only leaves you restive, but is no way to catch a break. Even though I witnessed an oddly charming breakdancing display in Krakow’s central square recently, it wouldn’t surprise you to discover that I felt no urge to join in. Breaking Bad is something else you shouldn’t get involved in, because meth can’t relax you — ask Bryan Cranston, why don’t you — and is absolutely not your speed (is speed even our speed anymore, breakneck or otherwise?). Plus, the last thing you want is a breakdown, yours or anyone else’s. It is to avoid precisely this you so desperately need a BREAK.

But there are also breaks that would fit wonderfully well with my fatigued fantasy vacay. Breakfast for instance. The kind you can roll up to at midday, to leisurely dip into delicious grub off mile-long buffets (as once was available at glitzy Las Vegas hotels — though nothing else about the experience did the trick for me). If you indulge in just enough, under a cooling canopy on a sunny verandah, rapt in a favourite drink/book/buddy and the most splendid view, of Pokhara, Provence or Polperro fanning out before you, you might find yourself then, gently rocked in the restful tides you’ve long dreamed of, and break through to the other side of… zzzzzzz.