Desperately sad about holiday ending

[Jackolanterny]

We spend summers abroad, usually away for 4-5 weeks.

I love the climate here, the nature, the space, the vivid colours, the water. I love everything about life here.It’s Florida.

I don’t want to come home. I have about two days left and already feel the holiday blues creeping in and the anxiety about returning to the UK. I hate the weather at home. I hate the pace. I hate the greyness and bleakness of everyday. If you told me I could never step foot in the UK again, I wouldn’t be worried at all.

I was made for this place and wish I could just live here. I will cry my eyes out coming home as usual and will pine to come back, thinking of not much else. It’s a feeling similar to grief, as melodramatic as that sounds.

I know this is daft, that I should try to enjoy life at home, but I just don’t. I can’t move here, it’s not possible. Maybe I can retire here for 6 months of the year, but that’s a long time away.

Does anyone else ever feel the same? I’ve been coming here since 1991, but for longer stints since 2008. So this isn’t just a Disney bubble thing, I couldn’t give two hoots about Disney. I spend every spare penny coming here, saving like mad and going without, because I don’t see the point in spending on stuff in the UK.

Just posting because I feel so sad and wondered if this was normal and if anyone else ever feels like this about their chose holiday destination?

You aren't helping things by being abroad during the best months of summer weather in the UK. Can you change the time of year you go? I've just spent a few sunny weeks kayaking and paddleboarding in the south.

You also don't sound as though you have done much to actively move to Florida - don't speak to your husband much about it, not investigated the likelihood of taking up education posts abroad (you definitely can), not put effort into career changes if this is a blocker for some reason. You seem resigned to wallowing in it. Can't you be more proactive? Master of your own destiny etc....

I think living and working somewhere is very different to going on holiday for a few weeks. So you need to really put proper thought in to every day finances and living. If I were you, I would make it happen as it sounds as though you think your husband feels the same way. Maybe try for a year if you are too scared to make the jump permanently (which it sounds like you are). Rent your house out, take a sabbatical from work, get any job over there that will finance a house rental and living costs.

Absolutely! I feel the same way about Jersey! I used to feel the same about Florida as we went every year for probably fifteen years, but the Florida blues dwindled.

After 4-5 weeks in florida it must be really hard coming home. Ive never been but your description sounds wonderful. Im lying in bed here listening to the howling wind and rain battering the window. I want to go out and about today but with no car im stuck in. I dont enjoy walking in horizontal wind and rain. If i was somewhere warm and sunny id have breakfast outside and go walking in nature.

So i get what you mean.

I was scrolling to see if you mentioned you were a teacher 😂. Are you sure the dread is the country and not the job?

We all get end of holiday blues OP but this is on another level and I think you'd be best served to get some professional help.

Unless you have some ancestry you haven't mentioned, you weren't "made" for Florida, you spend your time there in holiday mode and I can promise you it's a very different place to live and work, and your trips there are making the rest of your life miserable by comparison.

We'd all love to be on permanent holiday in a place where we don't have to work and the weather is mostly nice (wait til hurricane season - we lost our house thanks to Charley - it is NOT all sun and fun), but unless you're fabulously wealthy life doesn't work that way. It is better to be happy with who and where you are.

I feel the same way about the Maldives 😂

SIL went to Spain after graduating to work on luxury yachts for a season or two. She already had sailing qualifications. She still lives in Spain and has for 37 now apart from a stint home of two years when she was about 30. It is 100% about the weather for her.

I have been to Florida but also many other states in America and it’s not my favourite. You probably just like the weather and beach.

OP look up international schools. It might not be florida but you'll find somewhere sunny. If you are eyfs early childhood teachers were recently on the 'list' for Australia.

It’s hard for me to see the attraction because heat, humidity and bright sunshine sound hellish to me! Bring on the autumn cardigan weather and damp cloudy days for me! But I do understand actually because I feel the same way about other places. It is so hard to know how much is the holiday factor.

You could tell yourself that by keeping all the boring mundane stuff here in the UK you keep your favourite place as a totally positive thing, somewhere outside everyday responsibilities that you can visit regularly and one day retire to perhaps. It definitely would be very different to be working and living there, you get so little time off in the US and would be navigating their health care system etc. That said, I actually do think it sounds like you would still prefer it so I think like pps said really try and consider the chance to emigrate. Do you have kids to consider, or other close family?

Little did you know, your home's really only a town you're just a guest in
So you work your life away just to pay for a timeshare down in Destin

Florida!
Is one hell of a drug
Florida!
Can I use you up?

Anyone else have this song in their head now?

OP, you say possibly too old but the alternative is the rest of your life like this? Depressed and pining and spending all your money on return trips.

figure it out. Pack up and go. This is no way to live.

Have been singing it all morning!

I feel for you! I love the sunshine and feel so much better in warm or hot climates. I have lived abroad before and loved it, but I have ties here so I've made my peace with the rain. In your place, I would seriously think about moving abroad to a climate that suits you better. As a teacher, I am sure there must be jobs in international schools, at universities or you could retrain to teach ESL. Or you could retrain. Obviously your whole family needs to be on board and you need to think about the kids' schooling. I would also look at therapy. I don't know enough about it, but I think CBT might be worth looking into for intrusive thoughts. Sounds like your mind has got itself in a groove of "Florida is better" which is stopping you enjoy your present surroundings. x

Another one who gets you OP

I think it helps to have the next joyful moment planned. It’s so bleak to have nothing on the horizon but work, chores and winter.

Have you looked at options for teaching at British Curriculum international schools? There will be several, but I don't know how realistic finding a job for your subject would be (and whether they hire from abroad).

Sorry you feel like this.
I used to get this about a place in another country where I spent holidays with my grandparent.
Still mulling over moving there in my forties.
The tranquility and different mentality.
However, about Summer holidays ending - absolutely ecstatic!!
That's my problem obviously, get severely depressed in Spring since childhood.
Any practical possibility moving to Florida one day?

I know it's easy to say but you should try not to live your life just looking forward to the next holiday. I get sad at the end of a holiday but it's just a holiday and it's the sign of a good one! I try to do little things that make me happy every day, like getting home from work, knowing I've done the best I can & having a drink of what I like. There are many pleasures to be had in everyday life. Just constantly looking forward to the next big thing means you don't appreciate the little things, which are more important imo

I think I’ve read one of your Florida threads before!

OTOH, many people find winters hard. Look
into light boxes etc, but nothing wrong with looking to emigrate to Florida/other warmer climates. Or planning for retirement. I have close relatives who spend the winters in Florida and summers in the U.K./Europe.

But also agreed that there are other massive issues to explore here. You have to find happiness within yourself not create an artificial bubble to be on a high for 6 weeks of a year and miserable for the rest of it. It’s not healthy or natural.

Real life in Florida is very very different to the tourist bubble. I lived there for a while and I love the place too, but I wouldn't move back from the UK unless I was phenomenally loaded.

The weather is not always rosy. There are hurricanes, storm surges, flooding. It still gets cool in the winter. Summers can be uncomfortably hot and humid.

Housing and insurance can be very expensive thanks to the weather and flooding risks. Life in general in Florida is expensive. You need to be wealthy in order to enjoy yourself. Florida has higher than average levels of poverty, which ties into:

Crime, guns, and drugs. Florida Man is a real phenomenon, and these are the people you may encounter once you have to actually live, work, and go to school there.

Basically, if you have a lot of money and you can afford to buy a decent house in a good town / neighbourhood, insure yourself and your house to the hilt, have a backup residence to move to in a different state / country when the hurricanes hit, and don't have to work a normal job, you'll probably love it just as much as if you were on holiday.

If you don't have wads of cash though, you will find the reality of life there very different and your problems will not disappear.

Some good posts on here about the realities. My immediate thought was climate change. What will it be like when (and it's probably when rather than if) the glorious 33° sunshine and moderate humidity is replaced by days of 40° + alternating with intense rain/storms and hurricane season becomes ever longer and more dangerous? And that work treadmill spins ever faster as your insurance premiums soar?

What jumped out at me about your posts was the way you were effectively describing an addict's mindset. On your drug (= in Florida), everything is bliss, the perfect escape. During withdrawal (= not in Florida), the only thing that matters is getting your next hit (= next holiday), and nothing else remotely compares. And you're spending most of your life in withdrawal. Your comparison of the not-in-Florida times to grief could be quite offensive, actually, but for the fact that there's clearly a lot more behind this than post-holiday blues. In fact, I suspect that if you did actually move there, once the honeymoon period was over, you might actually end up longing for somewhere else. I don't doubt that the sunshine and warmth etc does play a role and that some people thrive better in some weather conditions than others. But what you're describing is really extreme, and IIWY I might be considering rededicating some of that scrimped and saved Florida budget to some therapy sessions to explore all this.

Do you have children?

Feel for you but come on! You have two choices. Make your peace with 5 weeks a year there and the scrimping and saving it takes. Or - take the bull by the horns and do something active to move there. It’s not impossible. Teaching is easily transferable, even in the US. Or as a PP said, try cabin crew so you’re guaranteed a trip to the US every few weeks. You can’t live in limbo like you are now forever! How much does it really mean to you? Would you go there without your DH? You could divorce him and marry a Florida man. Guaranteed residency then 😀

Do you stay in a hotel for all that time or a villa? Isn't it very expensive?

I grew up in what people think of as a tropical paradise and I can tell you it isn't when you have to live there and deal with day to day things. I came home to the UK when I was of boarding school age.
I love the UK, I love the 4 seasons, the changing weather, rain, snow.
I love everything about it and would never go back.
Sure the beaches were amazing but you can't live for beaches. There has to be something else, kinship, relatives, a feeling of belonging, everything.

Most Floridians I know don't actually get to the beaches very often - a) because they have to work, b) because they're rammed with tourists and it's impossible to park anywhere, and c) because when the tourists aren't there the weather is too poor or too hot to go.

This sounds like it isn't about Florida at all. Ever heard the saying "Wherever you go, there you are"? You are miserable in the UK because you are making your life in the UK miserable through your mindset and needless scrimping.

One thing to ask yourself is if you truely truely love Florida and have done for years what has stopped you investigating emigration? There are no language barriers and if you work in education you have some transferrable skills.

It seems like Florida is just an escape from something else in your life that is making you unhappy.