You need to tackle the 'fear of the return' head on

You’ve been bought a little time. But for an accident of the calendar that occurs once every few years, today would be The Worst Day Ever, writes Colm O’Regan. 

As it stands, this Monday is a slim buffer between you and the abyss. Use it wisely. Some people might want to “make the most of today”.

This is short-sighted because while you’re out cliff-diving or IronManning or some other active nonsense, the unwanted thought that you are going back to work tomorrow will worm its way to the front of your brain.

No, you’ll need to tackle the Fear of the Return head on.

Some people take the wise step of working between Christmas and the New Year.

There are benefits to this.

No one is around so no one knows if you did anything other than snooping in the bosses office or print out the internet.

Even if you managed to send one email or staple one thing during the few days you were in, you would still be one email and one staple ahead of the rest when they come in tomorrow.

You will also be acclimatised to the stale vaguely chocolate beery air that has hung around from the week before the holidays.

For the rest of you, you need to prepare.

First, it’s important not to dwell on the past. And by the past I mean, the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

This was the infinitely long week you were going to catch up with all your friends, tidy the attic, have long leisurely dusky pints, make and freeze enough soup for January, get a head start on New Year’s resolutions, start the process of changing your career which will culminate in you being featured in the list People To Watch In 2018, read all the Books You Need To Read, clear out your backlog of telly, finally print out at least one of the 14,000 photos on your laptop and hang it on your bare wall.

But instead you did nothing.

The main productivity was, well it’s a little indelicate to mention in detail, but let’s just say the Yankee Candle in the toilet is nearly burned down to the base as you worked your way through a Henry VIII style diet.

You are feeling low because you felt the only way to deal with a pallet of chocolate was to “eat it up sooner rather than later otherwise we’ll only be eating it for longer.”

So today is your last chance to prepare.

For example, just accept that someone famous from your childhood is going to die today or tomorrow. But as you mourn, don’t read too much into it.

It’s not a spaceship of the good people leaving before the end of the world.

It’s mostly because of the 1960s and 70s when cultural icons were being cast by the truckload.

And those people are in their 70s and 60s now they smoked like chimneys for a while and went to bed late so they may be at risk.

It’s going to happen more and more until the ‘stars’ of the 2000s and 2010s get old and no one will mourn them because we are all stars now.

Prepare a statement in reply to How Did You Get Over The Christmas?

Get ready to read it in front of all your colleagues tomorrow to get it all over and done with because it’s too depressing to repeat to them individually that “it was quiet, jaknow, too much eating and drinking haha”.

And most importantly, lay out your Tomorrow Clothes today in a neat pile. Put petrol/diesel in the car if relevant. Find your key-fob that you hurled at the wall on December 23.

Tomorrow is the first Tuesday. We can do this. But only if we start now.