The Person Who Keeps Track on Holiday

I found myself, on the third day, mentally rewriting the afternoon.

We were on the beach. Everyone was fine. Nothing was wrong. And I was lying there with my eyes closed, composing a version of the afternoon that would get everyone fed, rested, in the right place at the right time, back before the tiredness became a crisis.

Nobody had asked me to do this. Nobody needed me to do this. He was there. He was capable. The afternoon was manageable.

But the managing was happening in my head, automatically, because I am the person who manages. This is not a title I was given. It is a habit so well established that it runs without instruction.

I made myself stop.

I opened my eyes and watched the afternoon unfold without my narration. He bought ice creams at the right moment. The timing was different from how I'd have done it — slightly later, slightly less planned — and nothing went wrong. The children were fine. The afternoon was fine. It was, in fact, completely fine in a way that required nothing from me at all.

The cognitive load of holiday management is not the logistics. It's the believing you have to be the one who does the logistics. That's the harder habit to put down.

I had a decent afternoon after that.