Touchdown Sunday, Work On Monday

An eight-hour delay at London Heathrow Airport must have been a torturous wait at the departure lounge for those destined to fly to San Francisco on October 4th, 1995. To others, also waiting for the same flight, they just took the delay in their stride, accepting their prolonged airport confinement as part of life. Why make a fuss?

Meanwhile, I was enjoying the last full day of my holiday cycling around the Californian city, built on the southern peninsula of the Golden Gate Strait. Early the next morning, I vacated the backpacker's hostel for a pre-booked airport shuttle minibus ride to the airport. After I checked in, I was told that my mid-morning flight will be delayed by as much as eight hours. The plane I was due to board had not long taken off from London Heathrow.

It's rather maddening, coming to think of it. I could have spent another day enjoying the city sights, especially around the Fisherman's Wharf area, including Pier 39, which boasted restaurants, shops, various entertainments, and even a carousel. From the pier, I could relax whilst leaning on the parapet, watching the sea lions sunbathing on the floating platforms specifically built for them. Instead, I'm now confined in the airport departure lounge for the whole day as our plane soared across the Atlantic Ocean towards us. 

Sea lions were seen from Pier 39.

Onboard, I found that I was sitting next to a gentleman who was, I believe, in his late twenties or early thirties. We started talking. He too was flying home from his Californian holiday, and he felt rather upset by the delay. He wanted to go straight to his office after landing at Heathrow. But, due to his late arrival, he now feels better to return home after landing on that Thursday mid-afternoon.

Airport delays are nothing new. In 1977, I was delayed by six hours at Toronto Airport while I was waiting for a flight back to London Gatwick. This was due to a strike among the crew. Then, in 1993, I was held up for six hours at London Gatwick due to an oil leak from the hydraulics of the aeroplane bound for Tel Aviv. As we were all waiting for a new duct to be brought into Gatwick from Heathrow to replace the faulty one, I was surprised by the calmness shown among a group of Orthodox Jews relaxing in the departure lounge, some of them even sleeping through the ordeal.

However, it's the chap sitting next to me on the return flight to London from San Francisco, I would like to momentary flash a spotlight on. Had the plane taken off on schedule, he would have made his way to the workplace straight from the airport, so he tells me. Taking in both the duration of the flight and the different time zones, that would have meant turning up between 8.00 to 9.00 in the morning of the next day, Thursday. Instead, we touched down later that afternoon - by then, it was too late for him to turn up at his office.

It was my original plan to arrive back home by Thursday morning instead of Sunday. The whole of the long weekend was what I needed to readjust to the normal weekday routine. And for me, this was necessary. I wasn't yet ready to simply leave my apartment to resume day-to-day normal living.

In 1997, I took a ten-week backpacking Round-the-World trip to Singapore, the east coast of Australia, and southern California. I took off from London Heathrow on a Wednesday, and I landed back at Heathrow on a Wednesday. After a bus ride from the airport to my home, I entered through the front door and, aside from the mountain of mail just behind the door, I was hit by the silence that had hung within my apartment for the last ten weeks.

Throughout the trip, I was never alone. Right at the start, on the train heading into London, I sat opposite one of my customers as he was heading into town to do business. There were people around me as I prepared supper at the YHA Earls Court hostel on the eve of the flight. There were people around me at the airport departure lounge. There were very few people around me as I sat alone on a nearly empty British Airways flight to Singapore, but the constant purring of the engines, along with the occasional visit of the stewardess, reassured me that I was still in good company. 

Every day, every night, at the backpacker's hostel, there were always people around me - even the occasional snore from a hosteler in the next bed to mine. Each morning, before I made myself breakfast, I showered and shaved with other men around me, all doing the same. In the evening, I cooked a meal in the member's kitchen. And when you're in such an environment, you are never by yourself. Instead, pick the right time of the day to cook a meal and the chance of making new friends is almost always guaranteed.

That is why the silence in my own apartment after alighting from the bus hit me. And the silence hit me hard. I began to feel lethargic as a deep feeling of depression took hold as I began to miss all the noise, the liveliness of people talking, laughing and bustling around as each got on in what they were doing or where they were going. I must have laid on the bed inert for quite a long time. Oh, I knew what all this was. Post-Holiday Blues.

I have read at least on one occasion that post-holiday blues is a form of mental illness. I felt it after returning home from the month-long trip to the USA in 1995 and it actually stayed with me, on and off, for months. That was why, firstly, that I touched down on home turf on a Thursday and not on a Sunday. I needed the weekend to help recover. And secondly, it also explains why I was rather shocked at my companion's original intent to turn up at his office straight from the airport. Apparently, he wasn't at all affected by the syndrome.

Green Island Coral Cay, Aus. Visited in June 1997.

Seeing the town centre as I changed buses had brought back such familiarity. This includes the bank. No longer the tall, imposing building, worthy of a snapshot, dominating the Australian or American city skyline, but a more humble edifice in which I have to deposit my weekly income into my account to pay the bills. And right at that moment, my account was depleted of any funds. All the surroundings are so familiar - the same streets, the traffic, office blocks, shops, houses, trees, with none of the tropical vegetation that was so inspiring overseas. Nothing had changed since I boarded the train at the start of the trip. At home, everything was exactly as I left them ten weeks earlier as I closed the front door behind me to head for the train station.

The ensuing silence began to get to me. And I'm certainly not alone. I would go as far as to say that the longer the duration of the trip, the more intense the blues will be. I have also read about the same London travel agent where I originally booked the flights and purchased the tickets, Trailfinders Kensington High Street. If I recall, back then, they had opened a counselling room specifically for post-trip backpackers caught in a severe bout of post-holiday blues to receive counselling. And so, as I read, the counselling room was constantly busy.

At last, I phoned one of my friends, my accountant, to tell him that I had just arrived home. However, it was his wife who answered the phone and she invited me to come round. Immediately, I made my way to their home in their leafy district of Martins Heron. The talk we had throughout the evening was very therapeutic. Their hospitality was a much-needed boost to help me along in readjusting to normal living. By the following Monday, five days after landing, I was ready to resume work as a self-employed window cleaner.

It's these sorts of experiences that had helped me decide never to adopt the Touchdown-Sunday-Back-To-Work-Monday ethic. In keeping to my own promises, on our honeymoon, we flew out on a Saturday, and two weeks later, we landed back at London Gatwick on a Sunday morning. Therefore, we planned to take Monday as a day off, and we boarded a train to Reading to buy new furniture to suit our newly-married life. My very first day back at work as a married man was on a Tuesday.

With my PhD friend Andrew having spent a week in Cornwall with another friend has admitted, he too felt a level of post-holiday blues, although I had gotten the impression that he was nothing as intense as mine, especially after the 1997 Round-the-World trip. And that despite his love of his job as an accountant. It seems that no matter how highly educated one can be - Andrew is a doctor - this horrible malady seems to have no respect on whom it will rear its ugly head. Therefore, I can imagine the lonely office girl on her commute back to work on the first Monday morning, after a fantastic holiday with her close friends. It's raining outside, the road traffic is moving slowly, and then she drives at a crawling pace past the airport from where she took off just over two weeks earlier. And she knows that her serious-minded boss will not be in a welcoming mood if she arrives late.

One of the important life lessons was never to go on a long-haul holiday with a credit card! Indeed, it seems so easy to swipe the card over and over again whilst away. Collecting items as if they were free. Then you return home and immediately, you're hit with the post-holiday blues. Eventually, you sift through the mountain of mail that had dropped through the letterbox. Although 75% is junk mail - coloured sheets of adverts ready for the bin, among the rest of the mail are a couple of credit card statements. You know that it's time to make payment. And you also know that this could be difficult until the next paycheck comes in!

That is why that I have advised a couple of my younger friends who were about to get married - including a church elder - to destroy their credit cards once they settle down. There was a time when I was burdened with debt whilst holding a credit card. At first, I thought it was fun - walking into a shop and leaving with an item without having paid for it. But the reality soon comes home to roost!

Creditors usually allow part payment if the whole debt can't be paid off at once. Although this spreads the cost, actually, interest accumulates. I have ended up burdened under a debt of several hundred pounds. That was the state I was in during the early days of our marriage. In truth, I ended up paying far more for any specific item than had I bought and paid for it at the shop.

It was when my beloved wife was pregnant with our first daughter that I came to my senses. I could not bear the thought of raising my offspring in a house under the burden of debt. Therefore, I gathered all that I had and paid off the entire debt in one go. Once cleared, I cut the card in two and phoned the creditors, asking them to close my account. At first, they weren't willing, but I insisted on it. Since then, I had never allowed a credit card in our house. 

I believe that cutting up my credit card and closing my account was the will of God for us. Jesus didn't use credit when he purchased salvation for the world. Rather, it cost Him His life. And here is a good lesson I had to learn. If Jesus chose the hard way, the way of the Cross, then isn't it more sensible not to attempt to buy anything until you have adequate funds? This includes holidays. Since I married, we always went abroad for a holiday without a credit card.

I have discovered that I can manage post-holiday blues a lot better as a married man than I was single. This has led me to believe that the bottom cause of the blues was the sudden end of companionship that I had experienced during the trip. The sudden, still silence had brought the depression, along with the presence of credit card statements waiting for me.

With Autumn just around the corner, the kids are back at school, the swimsuit exchanged for the business suit and tie, holidays recede into both memories and photo albums, another year comes and goes. Yet God, who will never leave us, remains close to us, and we can look forward to Him to sustain us as we trust in His beloved Son.