The sand is gritty, exactly 18 shades of beige that I didn’t ask for, and it is currently wedged into the creases of my elbows in a way that feels personal. I am sitting on a beach in Tulum, staring at an ocean that looks like it was color-graded by a teenager with a heavy hand, and all I can think about is the fact that I spent 48 hours of my actual life last week just preparing to be here. I am supposed to be ‘unplugged.’ My phone is buried in a canvas bag under a layer of SPF 58 and a half-eaten granola bar, but my brain is still running the logistics of the maintenance cycle that allowed me to sit here without a care in the world. Except I do care. I care deeply because I am exhausted from the sheer effort of becoming low-maintenance.

It is a paradox that eats itself. We take time off to escape the grind, but the grind follows us into the salon, the spa, and the late-night packing sessions where we try to fit 28 outfits into a carry-on because we have this delusional vision of who we are on vacation. In my head, Vacation Me is a woman who wears linen and never gets frizz. In reality, I am a woman who spent $338 on eyebrow laminations and lash lifts just so I wouldn’t have to look at a tube of mascara for 8 days. I have effectively pre-gamed my relaxation with a level of stress that would make a corporate litigator weep. It is aesthetic labor, and it is the hidden tax on every ‘Out of Office’ reply ever sent.

I’m reminded of Adrian C.M., my piano tuner. He’s a meticulous man who carries a tuning fork like it’s a religious relic and speaks in whispers. Last month, when he came over to fix the D-sharp that had been buzzing like a trapped hornet, he told me that a piano is under roughly 38,000 pounds of tension at any given moment. He said the only way it makes beautiful music is because that tension is balanced perfectly. If you let it go completely slack, the wood warps. If you tighten it too much, the strings snap. I think about Adrian C.M. a lot lately, especially when I’m lying on a table having someone apply chemical solutions to my hair. I am trying to find that balance, but I usually just end up snapping.

I recently tried to do a DIY floating shelf project I saw on Pinterest. It looked so easy-just some reclaimed wood and ‘vibes.’ I ended up with 8 holes in my drywall that I had to patch with toothpaste because I didn’t have spackle, and a shelf that sits at a 118-degree angle. It was a disaster. It’s the same mistake I make with my PTO. I think I can just ‘do’ relaxation without the infrastructure. But the infrastructure is expensive and tiring.

The Pre-Vacation Scramble

Last Tuesday was the peak of the madness. I had 8 appointments scheduled in a 48-hour window. There was the hair, the nails (which took 68 minutes because I couldn’t decide between ‘sand’ and ‘slightly darker sand’), the wax, and the frantic trip to the drugstore for travel-sized bottles of things I already own in giant sizes. I was running from one end of the city to the other, checking my watch every 8 minutes, sweating through my blazer, all so I could reach this moment right now-this moment where I am supposedly doing nothing.

Outsourcing Perfection

But am I doing nothing? My skin is smooth, my lashes are curled by a chemical bond that will probably outlast my current relationship, and my toes are a vibrant shade of ‘I have my life together.’ I have outsourced my beauty so I don’t have to think about it, but the process of outsourcing was a full-time job. We are terrified of being seen in our raw state, especially when we are at our most vulnerable-resting. There is a societal expectation that even when we are off the clock, we must remain visually palatable. We don’t just go to the beach; we perform ‘being at the beach.’

I find myself wondering if I’m even capable of a vacation that doesn’t require a week of prep. What would happen if I just… went? With the stray chin hairs and the chipped polish and the hair that does that weird triangle thing when it gets humid? The thought makes my heart rate spike to about 88 beats per minute. We’ve been conditioned to believe that ‘treating ourselves’ involves a grueling checklist of self-improvement tasks. We are told that we deserve this, but the ‘this’ is often just more work disguised as pampering.

There is a specific kind of fatigue that comes from trying to look effortless. It’s the same fatigue I felt trying to hang that shelf. I wanted the aesthetic of the ‘handy’ person without the actual skill set, and I ended up with a mess. With vacation, we want the aesthetic of the ‘natural’ beauty without the vulnerability of being messy. So we turn to professionals. We go to a place like Trophy Beauty because we realize that our own attempts at this level of maintenance are usually as successful as my toothpaste-slathered drywall. We need the experts to handle the tension so we can actually play the music.

The Price of Effortlessness

I’m sitting here now, and the sun is starting to dip. It’s probably 5:48 PM. The ocean is turning a bruised sort of purple. I realized about 28 minutes ago that I haven’t actually relaxed yet. I’ve been too busy monitoring my sunscreen application and making sure I don’t rub my eyes and ruin the work I paid for. I am a curator of my own leisure, and the museum is exhausting to manage.

Adrian C.M. once told me that he hates electronic tuners. He said they are too precise; they don’t account for the soul of the instrument. He tunes by ear. He listens for the ‘beats’-the slight wobbles in sound when two notes aren’t quite in sync. I think my life is full of those beats right now. The wobble between who I am and who I want to be on Instagram. The wobble between the 58 emails I ignored this morning and the 8 beauty treatments I endured to feel ‘ready’ for this trip.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be perfection. Maybe the goal should be a slightly out-of-tune relaxation. But then I look at my reflection in my sunglasses and I see those perfectly shaped brows, and I feel a surge of relief. There is a power in it, isn’t there? The armor of grooming. When the world is falling apart-and let’s be honest, my DIY shelf is currently falling off the wall back home-at least my eyeliner isn’t smudging. It’s a small, shallow victory, but it’s the only one I’ve got at 28 degrees latitude.

I remember one time I tried to save money by doing my own gel nails. I ended up with 8 fingers stuck together and a layer of blue goop on my cat’s forehead. It was a 48-minute ordeal that ended in tears and a bottle of pure acetone. That was the day I realized that some things are better left to the people who actually know what they’re doing. The DIY movement is a lie sold to us by people who want us to feel guilty for spending money on ourselves. But my time has a price. My sanity has a price. If I have to spend 108 minutes in a chair to buy myself 8 days of not looking in a mirror, is that a bad trade?

The “Great Trade”

Actually, it’s a great trade. The frustration isn’t with the services themselves; it’s with the fact that they feel mandatory. It’s the ‘pre-vacation scramble’ that kills the vibe. We work 48 weeks a year just to get a few weeks off, and then we spend the last week of work doing double the labor to close out projects, while simultaneously doing triple the labor to ‘prepare’ our bodies for the public eye. We are running a marathon just to get to the starting line of a nap.

I see a woman a few umbrellas down. She looks like she hasn’t brushed her hair since 2018. She is eating a taco with a level of gusto I can only describe as spiritual. There is salsa on her chin. She looks… happy. Truly, deeply, 108-percent happy. I feel a pang of jealousy, followed immediately by the urge to tell her she has a stray hair on her shoulder. I am broken. I have been tuned to a frequency that doesn’t allow for salsa on the chin.

The Unfiltered Self

And yet, I’ll do it all again next year. I’ll book the appointments. I’ll spend the $888. I’ll fret over the timing of my wax. Because the alternative-showing up as my unfiltered, un-prepped, ‘natural’ self-feels like showing up to a concert with a piano that hasn’t been touched since the 78s were in fashion. I’m not ready to be that honest with the world yet. I need the polish. I need the chemical bonds. I need the experts to tighten the strings so I don’t warp under the pressure of doing nothing.

I suppose the real vacation would be taking a break from the expectations, not just the office. But until I figure out how to do that, I’ll just keep paying for the privilege of looking like I don’t have a care in the world. I’ll sit here, 18 inches away from my luxury beach bag, and try to remember how to breathe without checking my reflection. It might take another 38 minutes to get there, but I’m committed. I’ve paid too much for this relaxation to not be good at it.