While it was my dominant intent to be happy on our Chinese New Year vacation to Malaysia and Thailand, I didn’t always remember. Even though holidays hold none of the diurnal drudgery of home, you still carry your stress with you like a battered piece of old luggage with a broken wheel. Even the beach can’t cleanse you if your mind is full.
Also, when it comes to family vacations, everyone still needs to be fed and entertained. With no agenda, routine or bedroom of one’s own, it can be a bit more challenging to live peacefully side-by-side. Where to go when the going gets tough? The sofa or the bathroom? More likely, escape comes in the form of a device. So, in fact, vacations are a hot stewy mess of family togetherness sans space and routine. Who ever said that was bliss, even at the beach?
Circle Graph, Anyone?
That was a bleak introduction. Apologies. Empirically, I would say our holiday was quite successful, given what it could have been and what the last one was like. My calibrations would put it at 15% bliss, 60% satisfaction, 10% high stress, and another 15 percent of even-keel, everything-is-fine-but-could-be-better. How’s that for honesty?
Of the 10 % high stress, the acme of it occurred at 11:30 pm on the eve of our departure home, entailing a 5:30 am wake up call. Don took a swig from the water bottle in the bathroom after he brushed his teeth. Alas, it was Amway cleaning fluid cleverly disguised in a water bottle that the clueless-cleaning folk kept on the shelf under the sink. Vociferous gagging and a hospital visit ensued. Long story short, beloved husband and father is still alive and well, with a thoroughly cleansed palate. Lesson learned. Water bottles do not always hold water.
The other high stress incidents involved puberty, a high-strung mother (me) and variations on that theme. Several times I was accused of favoring one daughter over the other in shrieks that I thought impended the severing of mother/daughter relationships only to find laughter and offers of dried mango or games of UNO short moments later. Puberty and menopause in fits and starts…
Disappointment-in-self Ratio
It's not Olympic-worthy, but high. On a holiday, aren't we meant to take a break from self-scrutiny? In fact, I find it can be exacerbated when I am not fully involved in the everyday swirling vortex of my teaching career that entails juggling somewhere in the range of 10,000 tasks a day. There is all that extra time in the day left to critically examine oneself in a bathing suit and to parent in a combat zone where there are no trenches to escape to.
Regrets? I’ve had a few…
•My window of opportunity for Buddha-of-the-year has closed. I certainly wiled away the hours, but not by ‘conferrin’ with the flowers’ or ‘consultin’ with the rain.’ Unlike the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, I do have a brain that could have been less engaged and more zenned.
•My intentions to write and be that person who diligently scribes by the poolside with joyous abandon, pen tucked behind ear while sipping martini, did not happen.
•I continued to spend fairly voracious amounts of time reading news and social media that neither edified nor made me happier than I would have been reading trashy fiction or snoozing.
But What About the Highlights?
•Card games – mostly UNO - at outdoor venues while waiting for meals
•Watching Don and Emily play poker for loose change
•Throwing same loose change in the pool for the kids to dive for
•Stretching out on the poolside lounger with passionfruit drinks (modulated with vodka) whilst reading Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries and revisiting the 1980s
•The whole family snuggling together on the living room sofa in Hua Hin watching nightly recaps of the Olympic events, especially women’s hockey and “Big Air.” Our dual citizenships allowed us to root for two countries, but I was still disappointed in the hockey outcomes. Come ON, Canada...
•Doing at least one New York Times crossword puzzle every day.
•Our near-daily trips to 7-11 to buy “triangles” (rice with salmon wrapped in seaweed) and the constant search for breakfast fixings. Why didn’t we just go out? Because that would have entailed us getting out of bed at a prescribed time and none of us wanted that. So the highlight was actually staying in bed indefinitely, except when I was on the balcony lying on the lounger, which was my second bed.
•The evening we met up with the Smyth family at a local seaside restaurant for dinner (except Darren, who was at the police station, after their car had been bumped by a motorcycle: which was not the worst thing in the world for him as he’s allergic to seafood and we probably would have found a way to inadvertently kill him), and the walk home as the tide was coming in, dodging the waves and getting wet and silly under the moon.
•Seeing Laurie Clemens and her husband Ted at Cabbages and Condoms (a pretty amazing restaurant resplendent with condoms that has an NGO supporting birth control, HIV/AIDs, poverty, and water resource development), and catching up on old times and hearing about their upcoming Romania adventure.
•The amazing courtesy and demureness that earns Thailand the “land of smiles” honor. On our bike tour, I opted to stay at the back of the pack, with one of the guides. She said hello or thank you or excuse me (sawatdee kah, khob khun kah) to every person we passed in this beautiful, lilting voice. While I couldn’t turn around to see her, it was obvious she was smiling. Nearly everyone in Thailand is happy to meet your eyes and give you a greeting. I always feel seen and appreciated there, especially when I am looking and my own heart is open.
Wrapping Up:
Like my hair, there were more highlights than lowlights. While I greatly look forward to each and every vacation our international-school-teacher lifestyle affords us, I am always so happy to walk in the door, see our beloved Catboy, light the lamps, and hotfoot it up to the third floor where my cozy bed and tub await me. In short, there’s no place like home.
I feel better about myself already.
