Anxiety sucks. In less than two weeks Craig and I will be driving to Buffalo, dropping off the kids, and driving on to Toronto to take an early Saturday morning flight to what seems to be a tropical paradise. I should be so excited. Instead I am a bundle of nerves.
This feels a lot like last spring when we were planning out the epic week-and-a-half Midwest odyssey that ended up turning into two long weekends. I was losing sleep and was completely on edge for a solid month or more. This time it's manifesting a bit differently, but it's no less stressful. Once in a while I am up late thinking or have a dream that wakes me up with some "awake for no reason" ruminating, but most of the time there's just a troubling undercurrent to everything I do. I'm working and thinking about how I don't want the trip to put more pressure on my co-workers while I'm gone. I'm prepping for year-end school activities and worried about what we're missing. I'm looking at the boys' busy schedule and wondering if my parents will be able to manage it all. I'm cooking dinner and wondering how my mom will figure out how to feed Jacob for five days. I'm doing things around the house and think about what would happen if something went wrong and I'm not around to do those things. I realize that's a bit extreme, but I don't make it a habit of traveling internationally away from my kids for a reason.
I want to be excited about it, I really do. I've never gone anywhere like this and you know how much I love seeing new places and experiencing new things. A fancy suite, luxurious resort, and tropical beach...I mean, that sounds amazing. And Craig and I haven't had more than a weekend away alone since before Jacob was born. He turns 16 right as we get back, so...yeah, we're probably due. I've talked before about how my parents went on trips pretty frequently (in comparison, anyway) when I was a kid. They went to Disney World without us, for Pete's sake. But it was different because we had grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides to spread out the responsibility. We were local, we were pretty low maintenance, and there were a couple layers of backup if something were to go wrong. We just needed a place to sleep and eat, and someone to shuttle us around. All of our cousins went to the same schools, so at worst our rides were covered, and my one uncle had no job, so in theory he was always around to help. I enjoyed the time with my grandparents and the inevitable spoiling, even though I missed my parents and worried endlessly like the good little undiagnosed anxious child I was.
As we've talked about wills and guardianship options, I'm envious of how many options my parents had to pick guardians for us in their will, because my dad had multiple siblings that lived locally and already had other kids and certainly would have been willing to take us on if tragedy struck. If God forbid anything happened to us, my kids' entire lives would be uprooted, far above and beyond the already jarring loss of parents and their home. They'd have to move to a new city and leave everything behind because we don't really have options here. We're not very comfortable with pretty much any option, to be honest, for lots of different reasons ranging from finances to lifestyle to age. Our kids may be older at this point, so it's not like handing someone an infant to raise for the next 20 years, but still...it feels quite impossible to us. We had some plans to work something out before we left, but that stalled and I'm stuck in analysis paralysis and not sure what to do now.
The other night I climbed into bed and Craig was watching the beginning of "Couples Retreat". I don't know if that was on purpose or not. But hoo-boy, there were a lot of parallels. We pretty much are the Vince Vaughn-Malin Akerman couple. We're overdue for a solo trip, don't get out much, burned out on our kids, and probably in need of a relationship recharge. When they meet with the counselor in the movie, they talk a lot about "getting through" things together pretty well, and that's probably about how we'd describe ourselves too. We're more "survive" than "thrive", and while we've probably survived things a lot of other couples would not have, we've probably lost a lot of ourselves individually and as a couple over the years. Our pre-kid travels definitely had a different vibe. Things change, and that's fine, but I suppose we're quite overdue. I'm often derided by Jacob for being too serious and not fun, and yet I think I was pretty fun back in the day. But when you have to be the one who feels the pressure to keep the train from flying off the rails (in multiple different ways), sometimes the humor and fun get lost a bit. It's not that I'm incapable of fun, it just usually has to take a backseat to managing all the things, and by the time I do what I have to do, there's probably no energy left for anything else. My hope is that once I'm in a tropical paradise experiencing something I never thought I would, I'll let go of the anxiety of what I left behind and just live in the moment. FaceTime and Messenger should be a helpful aid, just in case, to stay connected and ensure all is well. I would have loved to have that when I was a kid and my parents traveled, because the reassurance they were okay would have been comforting.
I'm planning on taking my personal laptop and checking my work email there. I don't want to actually work, but it helps to log in, clear out junk, and keep things moving, so I'm less likely to come back to hundreds of emails after the trip. I'll only have one full work day that week (and maybe a couple hours on a vacation day Friday) to get myself caught up, so I think checking in once a day is a little bit of insurance against extra stress on anyone else, or on me when I get back. I'm trying to get as much done ahead as possible, as well, so that part is less concerning at the moment. I will say that pretty much every colleague I tell about the trip is pretty much like, "Yes, you should definitely go," and my big boss was like, "What can I do to help?" because she has kids and gets it. So I don't think anyone's holding it against me, but they probably think I'm a little nuts about being so hesitant.
Even though I know my parents are capable humans, they are older and more comfortable in their own element. I know they want to be able to bring the kids back to their house at some point, but given the baseball schedules and school schedules, I don't know that it will work. Jacob wraps up exams on the day we leave, but Carter has school Monday and Tuesday. Carter will likely have baseball on Saturday, and maybe Monday and Wednesday, and Jacob could have 2-3 games in there as well, and his may be in other towns. Luckily Carter's early mornings are done by then, but Jacob may need some training or treatments during the day when Carter is at school. Food is a whole other issue. My mom is a very capable cook, but she'll have to do it in my kitchen and have to figure out gluten-free meals for five days. They can go out a bit, but there are only so many places Jacob can eat. So I'm wondering if I need to make a meal plan, if I need to buy food, and how much I need to prepare. I'm at Wegmans twice a week, so I either need to buy a ton ahead or hope my mom can figure it out with Jacob in tow. And then there's the whole accommodation situation. Would it be weird if I changed our sheets so they could sleep in our bed? A basement air mattress seems like a bad idea, and couches work for a night but not days on end. So what is going to work best there? And amidst all the trip prep and packing, I will also feel compelled to clean my house. I know my mom would insist I don't, but let's face it, the filth we ignore on a daily basis is more than they're used to. Ultimately I know my mom is willing to do whatever, maybe because she knows their parents did it back in the day. My dad was actually mad we weren't staying the whole time, but at the same time he hates being away from home so his ability to help may be limited. They're also both in their 70s, which wasn't the case with my grandparents until I was a teenager, and by then I mostly just stayed with my grandma across the street. All she had to do was feed me dinner, provide me a bed, and probably get me to school, because I could run back and forth between houses to get ready in the morning or have access to my stuff. This is a lot more labor intensive, and despite best intentions, I worry this could get tiring and stressful for them. I have such a complex about not wanting to burden or disappoint other people, and this trip is hitting that particular nerve repeatedly.
I also keep finding things to be nervous about. Weird things happen on tropical islands. Less so at nice, five-star resorts, but still. I'm not planning on leaving the resort, which seems safest, but things can go wrong anyway. We don't know for sure that the water is safe and we don't know how controlled the mosquitos are (especially because they love me). I did send my doctor a message to see if there are shots or anything that I should make sure to have, but she just directed me to a list most appropriate for those going to less controlled rural areas. A Facebook inquiry revealed a lot of people have not done anything prior to going. We don't know how trustworthy our charter flight there, the airport shuttle, or even the staff will be. And what happens if weather becomes an issue, especially when I'm alone at the airport on the way home? I haven't eaten or drank quite like this place will allow for a long time, and not that I'll be out of control, but sometimes fun takes over when you haven't had much action recently, right? Over the weekend I was researching the resort and discovering the whole tipping of the staff thing will be yet another thing to figure out. I just feel like such a fish out of water, and it makes my whole desire to plan ahead nearly impossible.
It's also more uninterrupted time together than we've had in a decade and a half, so I'm slightly concerned that could have unexpected challenges--like those stories you hear about people who have been so invested in their kids that they have nothing else to talk about later, or even, shall we say...unequal expectations about how we should use that alone time? There's a certain level of pressure there that everything needs to go smoothly for so many reasons. Jacob has a whole other level of concern, and while Carter doesn't say much, I know this could be hard for him, too, because we've probably been away from him less than Jacob. I dread coming home and hearing Jacob's commentary on what didn't go well, because he tends to take a lot of things personally, even if people were putting in their best effort.
I always battle against the fears that something will prevent us from going altogether--sickness, maybe a hurricane, or some other last-minute crisis--because I don't want to get my hopes up like I did for some canceled trips in the past. Unfortunately, the COVID and hurricane issues that threatened our last Disney trip did nothing to ease those concerns for future trips, and here we are. But I almost think I have so many other concerns this time around that those haven't ramped up as crazy just yet--but rest assured it will get worse once we hit the "deal breaker zone" where anything that crops up that week prior could have an impact. A lot of days recently I've had that thought that I just shouldn't go at all. Years ago I had a revelation that when you're feeling stress from trying to cram in too much, eliminating the most complicated thing usually means the rest of the things will go smoother. That applied to things like weekends where we had a ton of plans and were trying to cram in a gratuitous Buffalo trip, or planning for a party and stressing about one element or another, meaning I need to simplify something. Usually I've done my best to let go of the hardest thing and be okay with it, and as a result there have been many moments with this trip where it's like, "Why am I doing this to myself? Not going would solve so many problems." But truth be told, it's sort of jerky to drop out now, and not going would be so depressing, especially since Craig would probably go regardless because it's his former employer and colleagues. Being stuck at home with the day-to-day struggles and stresses while he's in paradise? Ugh, not great. And honestly, if I put it off now, how much harder will it be to do it again on our own terms later once the precedent has been set that leaving the kids has been established as a cause for concern? It could only get harder. And this time most of our expenses are paid. We will have to pay for a pre-airport hotel in Toronto and long-term parking, as well as airport shuttles and our flights back because we're both leaving early, plus the aforementioned tips, but there's no way we could afford this resort ourselves so it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I'd regret missing out on. Assuming all goes smoothly, later on it will seem crazy to have worried and I'm sure we'll come back with lifelong memories regardless, but that still feels like a big "if". I'd never forgive myself if something went wrong because it will inevitably feel selfish to have gone, even if all reasonable logic wouldn't blame us for taking advantage of a great situation that's long overdue.
I'm trying to get myself excited, but it's hard. Last weekend Craig went shopping to get himself a couple things for the trip, like a nice short-sleeved button down shirt that feels beach-appropriate. The other day I was eyeing up floppy beach hats at Aldi that only cost $5 but figured I wouldn't have room in my luggage. But the next Aldi trip they still had one and it seemed pretty packable. But then I decided it looked a bit silly because it was so big and floppy, but I did get a new bathing suit. They had ones for $12.99 and all the people online were raving about them, to the point one gastric bypass person lauded it for managing her extra skin just fine. If it worked for her, it had to work for me, right? I loved the one style, and my store happened to have it in my size. It's a simple teal one-piece with a ruffle around a very deep-cut neckline. I figured it was just the right amount of practical vs. sexy--fine to wear in our pool or on this kind of vacation (but maybe not a waterpark or local beach), but showing enough skin that Craig would be on board. Sure enough, he was a big fan--even mentioning it to me again the next morning to make sure I was bringing it with us. Ha. I might also throw in my tiniest bikini, my beloved H&M find from probably 2004 that I haven't been able to part with all these years later. I am not skinny enough to wear it in public or even in front of my kids, but in our personal patio hot tub for Craig's enjoyment? Perhaps. I see other people's tropical photos and think about that "Couples Retreat" scene where they get to the resort - where one character exclaims, "This looks like a screen saver!" and others marvel about the holes in the floor to see the fish - and want to experience that. I want to feel excited and have a countdown on my phone like most people, but I am also terrified. I feel so weird being so hesitant about something that should be awesome, but I just can't shake the worry.
So, with less than two weeks to go, I have about a million things to plan and prepare, and in the midst of it are a number of other events and challenges. Carter has his Jr. Olympics and his orchestra Seabreeze field trip this week, although weather could impact both of those things as well as baseball for both boys on Wednesday and maybe Saturday. Carter has a field trip and picnic next week, and both boys have a doctor appointment. Jacob has a randomly early Regents exam tomorrow, and wraps up the rest next Friday. He needs to be done as he has reached max capacity right now mentally and physically. He's still dealing with leg issues, and then a stupid moment between the boys last night hurt his thumb, so now that's on the radar as well. Getting him up every day is a struggle. He is just over it. And honestly, I get it...I pretty much am as well. It's torture to drag myself out of bed most days, and work is a haul right now. So I totally understand why he's struggling, but if I'm honest, part of life is just figuring out how to push through when you hit a wall like this. I'd say we're lacking a bit in sympathy, though. because he's facing down two-plus months of no school in two weeks, whereas we have a mere few days off coming up and otherwise no end in sight. I was thinking this morning about that feeling of summer vacation, and man, did that make me wish I could go back in time! That feeling of freedom was unreal--the world was your oyster, the possibilities were endless (sort of, anyway), and it just felt so freeing to be done. I could watch TV all day, play with my toys, read for hours, or ride my bike to Heather's, my cousins', my grandparents', or the library. Maybe I'd get to go out to lunch or go shopping if my mom was home. I could sleep in and didn't have to rush to get ready. I wasted a lot of good time doing mindless stuff, but it worked for me. He will get that break, too, but he just needs to push through these couple weeks. Carter, on the other hand, still needs some camps scheduled, but that's yet another thing I can't seem to wrap my brain around.
I have no doubt these couple weeks are going to go fast. Normally they go fast enough, but when things are complicated it's even faster. I have plenty to fill my days and that's usually a sure-fire way to run out of time! And in three weeks, it'll all be done and hopefully we have nothing but good memories to look back on. But don't mind me over here fighting my brain to get there.
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