It’s midway through the summer holidays in Cornwall. The sun is shining (sometimes), the beaches are packed with smiling families and squealing children, the shops and restaurants are bustling, pub gardens overflowing. The dog days of summer are truly underway, work and school a distant memory for now.
But me? I’m sat crying on the step in my bathroom, head in my hands, burnt out, exhausted and wishing the summer would hurry up and be over already.
I’ve just been sent a selection of photos like a list of my failings as a host– mould spots, a rusty barbecue, a crack in the hob, a fold in the rug. It doesn’t matter that all summer I’ve had happy guests and glowing reviews; it just takes one difficult one to knock me down and make me feel like an entirely inadequate human. I know it’s not a personal attack, but it feels like one when I’m running my own business. I’m giving 120% of my energy and it’s still not enough. Midway through the season, I’m at my lowest low.
I don’t know how to put into words to you the feeling of summer burnout– if you’ve ever worked in hospitality you’ll be familiar with it. Six weeks of the year feel more physically demanding, more mentally draining than the remaining forty six.
You lose all sense of who you are, who you were before the summer; time is no longer a concept but a hot, sweaty, miserable blur. If you were just about holding your shit together before, well guess what– now you’ve got to deal with everybody else’s shit too, and smile because you’re being paid to do it.
It’s not just the servitude; it’s the traffic too, the lack of personal space, the longing for winter silence and stillness. The fact that all of our secret spots have been posted online as Hidden Gems and are now overrun, leaving us with nowhere to escape to.
It’s the lonely “hey, how was your day?” at the end of the night, as my partner and I go to sleep in separate beds, running on different schedules. How isolating tiredness can be, quality time put on the back burner indefinitely.
It’s also the way dread wrenches in your gut at a late-night work notification, always being ‘on’ and available, never able to switch off. It’s being unable to remember what not being busy felt like, realising you’re just living life as one long to-do list.
Sometimes I feel so trapped I just want to scream into the void, or burn my whole world to ashes and run. Instead I gaze at the moon out of my window, imagining myself under that same sky on different land. I struggle to recall memories of a simpler, more joyous time, yet knowing I’m still working towards escape keeps me going, dropping pennies into the piggybank minute by hour by day.
For so long I bought into this life, into the version of freedom that working casual jobs brings, that I could work 3 jobs and 60 hour weeks all summer to afford to travel through the winter, and be free of the constraints of a career. But at some point this year I decided that I wanted to be happy all of the time, not just from September to May. That I can’t subsist on hope for the future while life slips by in to-do lists rather than memories. Because when that hope or those plans fall through the cracks, I’m left standing on unstable, unfamiliar ground.
Yet here I am, working another summer. The camping trips, the bike rides, the beach days– they’re another hazy dream, promises swept away on a warm summer breeze. It just struck me today, as I write this, that the life I envision for myself in the future is one where summer rolls around not as a burden, but a joy. That one day I’ll be able to sit and cook on the dusty ground with friends at sunset, pick fresh fruit from the trees as I wander, sleep under the stars with my skin warmed and bronzed, feet bare and sandy. That quality time with my partner will be all of the time. That summer holidays will be for me, too– not just for others. That seems more wholesome to me than 5 year plans and career prospects.
Summer is my propellor in every sense; it’s the only time of year I earn a good wage, and it’s the biggest motivator for me to leave this country and travel. Ben and I have sworn that this time, this really will be our last summer here. That next year we’ll leave the burnout and the sweaty kitchens and the double shifts and the ungrateful guests behind. Freedom will once again be our way of life, not little pockets snatched out of the chaos.
So next year, I choose sunburns over burnouts. Silence over suffocation. Beautiful views over 5* reviews.
Real happiness awaits on the edge of September, when the leaves fall, the air cools and I can finally breathe again. I just need to hold on a little longer.
If you’re reading this and nodding along, then just know that you can hold on too. It’s only one more week to go.
If you’ve ever felt that same midsummer suffocation, or suffered the burnout of hospitality, I’d love to hear your story in the comments. And if this piece resonated, you can help me keep writing by subscribing or sharing it with someone else who might need reminding today that they’re not alone in feeling this way.
–Lucy 💙
Hi Lucy, i do feel for you and have been reflecting on your post. I too work in the hospitality industry, albeit only renting out a small apartment in my home ( i do all the cleaning and laundry which is not unenjoyable making it nice for guests but also a little taxing by the time mid August comes around). Actually, i can afford to hold off on a few weeks’ let in this season because i can find that some people can be ***holes! It has also given me a chance to get on top of the mould which usually runs rampant when i keep the heating off in summer and condensation doesn’t evaporate. I could inform your guests who complain that it usually takes a strong application of unpleasant -smelling bleach over a 12 hour application! Hey ho…. ‘Complainers’ are rare and it is usually to do with their own sad and constrained lives not about you…
Then, as i was contemplating the difficulties of life, up comes a directive from a fb friend who made me see it in a different light so i thought i would share the spiel with you…..
"We don’t have to go to Tibet or into a war zone to practice in a charnel ground.
"The charnel ground is a metaphor for any environment where suffering is present—a Japanese hospital, a school room, a violent home, a mental institution, a homeless shelter, a refugee camp. Even a space of privilege, like the corporate boardroom or Wall Street trading floor, can be a charnel ground. Really, any place that is tainted by fear, depression, anger, despair, disrespect, or deceit is a charnel ground—including our own mind...
When we suffer within our own internal charnel ground, we are vulnerable to pathological altruism, empathic distress, moral suffering, disrespect, and burnout. But when we take a wider and deeper view, we see that a charnel ground is not only a place of desolation but also a place of boundless possibility.
My colleague Fleet Maull, who was incarcerated for 14 years on charges of drug trafficking, compares his experience of practicing meditation in prison to practicing in a charnel ground. The prison is a tough practice environment, one where greed, hatred, and delusion are the order of the day. Yet this charnel ground proved something to him.
In his book Dharma in Hell, Fleet Maull writes,
“I’m thoroughly convinced after spending fourteen years in prison with murderers, rapists, bank robbers, child molesters, tax dodgers, drug dealers and every sort of criminal imaginable, that the fundamental nature of all human beings is good. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind .”
~ Joan Halifax
Good times and bad, we go with ourselves everywhere.. We can’t avoid these waves but can we ride through them with equanimity? I honestly don’t know. Maybe it means exclaiming with joy or frustration and then move on? You’ve got a goal and working to a plan and…. September is fast approaching! Wishing you smooth sailing for the rest of the year anyway.🙏😘
Feeling this in my bones right now. Hang in there. Almost September 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼