I've been hunkering down for the last couple of months with Italian guidebooks and cruise brochures - my favorite reading materials. I've mapped out possible train routes, visited Trip Advisor for the latest review of hotels in the Cinque Terre and calculated how to use our remaining frequent flier miles in the most efficient manner. I'm one of the those people who LOVE to plan vacations. I love the minutiae of picking out the right hotel; the best cruise ship; the perfect itinerary. And the best part - knowing that that travel date is out there in the future just waiting for me. I can put up with a lot of disappointment and stress when I know that date is on the calendar. It doesn't matter how many months down the road it might be - it's out there. As far as I'm concerned, you can have expensive jewelry, uncomfortable shoes and over-priced clothes - give me a memorable trip to a far away land any day.
But now I have to face the facts. As much as I want to throw reason out the porthole, I can't ignore the reality that now is not a good time for us to go. As much as I want to celebrate our upcoming birthdays and anniversary, the festivities will have to wait. It's funny. Many times I have been the voice of reason when my children were ready to jump into something without thinking it through; many times I have cautioned them to think with their heads instead of their hearts; many times I have warned them that they would be sorry if they didn't save their money for a rainy day.
Well, it's raining. And I have to listen to my own advice. And it sucks.
Showing posts with label tough choices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tough choices. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
To Be or Not to Be. . .
As a mom you're kind of conditioned to put your kids' needs in front of your own. You shower when they're napping, you go to Disney World instead of a cottage in Fiji and you share the last chocolate cupcake even when you're deep in PMS I'd-kill-for-chocolate mode. When you've been behaving like that for a couple of decades, it's not easy to come to terms with your dormant selfish side.
Case in point: I'm celebrating a big birthday this year. I won't say which but it's not 50 and it sure as hell ain't 70. Ditto my darling husband. We're also celebrating our 30th anniversary. Any one of these events would be worth celebrating (translation - drinking heavily through) but all three in the same year deserve some special attention - at least they do in my book. Naturally for me, that means a trip to Italy. And therein lies the problem. I want to go. I deserve to go. But I just may not be able to justify actually doing it. Not this time.
When your husband is "restructuring his career" (read temporarily unemployed), your two grown kids have set up camp in their old rooms, and you can't find a cruise itinerary that thrills you, maybe the universe is trying to tell you something. While I might like to kid myself into thinking that it's trying to tell me: a) he needs to get away, b) they'll be just fine and c) take that great deal anyway, I'm realistic enough to know that maybe it's telling me that this is not the right time; that my patience will be rewarded if I just step back and wait for the timing to be better. Maybe I need to put everyone else's needs ahead of my own one more time.
Or maybe I have to realize that there never is a perfect time to do anything and just go for it.
Case in point: I'm celebrating a big birthday this year. I won't say which but it's not 50 and it sure as hell ain't 70. Ditto my darling husband. We're also celebrating our 30th anniversary. Any one of these events would be worth celebrating (translation - drinking heavily through) but all three in the same year deserve some special attention - at least they do in my book. Naturally for me, that means a trip to Italy. And therein lies the problem. I want to go. I deserve to go. But I just may not be able to justify actually doing it. Not this time.
When your husband is "restructuring his career" (read temporarily unemployed), your two grown kids have set up camp in their old rooms, and you can't find a cruise itinerary that thrills you, maybe the universe is trying to tell you something. While I might like to kid myself into thinking that it's trying to tell me: a) he needs to get away, b) they'll be just fine and c) take that great deal anyway, I'm realistic enough to know that maybe it's telling me that this is not the right time; that my patience will be rewarded if I just step back and wait for the timing to be better. Maybe I need to put everyone else's needs ahead of my own one more time.
Or maybe I have to realize that there never is a perfect time to do anything and just go for it.
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