On post-vacation overwhelm

And emotional complexity and internet authenticity and etc etc etc

First drafted in our final hours near the shallow blue-green ocean.

The morning after our vacation in the Florida keys—more than four days where I kept my phone and computer offline—I reconnected to the internet. I started with text messages, scanning through a manageable number of updates in my family’s group chat and a couple notes from friends. (It isn’t unusual for my responses to come after a delay, so no big deal on that front.)

Then I moved to emails. It took a half hour to organize 51 new messages and schedule upcoming tasks accordingly (thank you, Todoist) before I gave Instagram a brief scan, clicking through too many story updates before shaking myself free of the compulsion to scroll scroll scroll.

In theory, the fact that it was so simple for me to jump back into the digital world should be comforting. I disconnected for the better part of a week… and nothing exploded! Nothing collapsed! That underscores the futility of constantly checking my apps when I am online. Rarely does my immediate presence make a big difference; it’s okay to relax.

And yet I do not feel relaxed.

As I write this, I have already scheduled a post—drafted yesterday, the last day in our oceanfront campsite—about how calming and healing and wondrous our little vacation was. I woke up feeling entitled to that sense of peace. Convinced it was unwavering, robust.

But now, so soon after declaring I was all charged up, I have spent an hour trying (and failing) to unknot the twists in my stomach. How did I crash so quickly? We haven’t even driven out of the keys yet and already I have rambled to Sean at rapid speed about the many worries knocking against my skull, settling in my chest.

Perhaps this morning was too much at once. I love the idea of “batching” tasks—treating all sorts of activities the way we naturally approach laundry, for example, allowing a full load to build up before addressing it in one fell swoop. (Thanks to Atomic Habits blogger James Clear and an old favorite freelance client for that concept.) But it’s not surprising that several full loads of online “obligations” after a period of cold-turkey distance feels overwhelming.

Perhaps these are normal post-vacation blues. That’s a well documented experience—and though our life is nontraditional, there’s natural sadness in leaving a lovely experience behind.

Perhaps I am just still Figuring It All Out. I’ve come so far in the last several years—I am proud of my growth, of my general conduct in personal and professional pursuits—but the unflappable Haley I long dreamed of becoming is still out of reach. She’s a fantasy. We can optimize and challenge and learn and bask… but we are still human, still animal, still affected.

I told Sean this morning that my ability to feel distraught in literal paradise makes me ashamed. There have been a few distinct times since moving into our van where this has happened: We will be parked in a literal dreamland, and I will find myself curling up in the back bed or falling into Sean’s arms and Scout’s fur through tears. The contrast of external beauty and internal turmoil makes the whole thing worse. What kind of ungrateful person stresses over such trivialities—does my stomach have too many rolls in this swimsuit, did I take too long to reply to that publication’s email, am I successful in shallow ways—when surrounded by such wonder?

The answer: A perfectly normal person. A perfectly sensitive person. A perfectly reasonable, fine, emotional being. When I let go of the shame, I am left mostly with amazement at the complexity of being alive and feeling so much.

As a writer, I’m often drawn to narrativizing my own life. Amanda Montell talks about this in The Age of Magical Overthinking, speaking to my soul when she admits a yearning to discard parts of her story that don’t match the larger character arc she wants to create. I’ve long struggled with living a life worth writing about more than writing myself into existence. And that’s part of what’s going on this morning.

In a landscape of short sound bites and simple stories, it is worth admitting the ups and downs. I can write honestly about an experience being calm and healing—like I did yesterday—and then shortly after feel the opposite and share my questions about which is “true”. (They’re both true.) Having spent so many years nestled in the online world, I sometimes obsess over authenticity and the struggle to translate my internal world into words someone else can understand. Realizing all over again that life can be many things at once helps me accept that a perfect ideal of authenticity— complete “transparency”—is impossible to achieve and futile to chase.

I am who I am, always, I share what I share, when I can, and that’s enough.