Well, this is a new one...

We are on vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama, and​I’ve discovered how enjoyable it is to ride around the lazy river on an inner tube and have an ice cold beer handy. I’m not a big drinker, but I do enjoy it at certain times and places. It’s hard for me to relax in even the best of circumstances, and so I know once I get in the tube, I’ll feel anxious for a bit and have to constantly remind myself to let go of the muscles in my body that I will be automatically clenching without realizing. It will take me a while to stop catching myself tensing up and to be able to stay in a completely relaxed state. But I will eventually, and I’ll sip on my cold beer and feel so grateful for the experiences my boys are having and knowing that they don’t need anything from me for a while. We have been waiting many years to get to a place where family vacations are actually somewhat relaxing, and this feels really good.

Before I get in the water, I volunteer to go up to our condo to retrieve the frozen tumblers and beer and leave Jose at the pool with the boys. I get to our condo on the 4th floor, and I just try to remember to live in every single moment. There’s no rush, there are no emails to worry about, no phone calls I have to make or answer, no reason to hurry. I tell myself to look around the room and memorize the details of it so later I can still picture it and not wonder things like “Were there curtains? What color were they? What was the dinner table made of and how many chairs were there? Did all the living room chairs have cushions and how were they coordinated? What color paint is on the walls? Are the rooms painted different colors?” I do this, because I know if I don’t make a point of practicing, I will find a way to make even grabbing a drink on vacation a busy and hurried moment. I really do have to continuously remind myself to. slow. down.

I’m holding the tumblers and am ready to head back down to the pool, forcing myself to slow my pace, and take leisurely steps. I already know from years of practice that my face rarely gives away the stress going on inside. I show it in the quick pace of my walk. I have a natural ability to appear easy and breezy if I'm standing still. And, to some extent, I am that person. I just have a constant battle waging within between my easy, breezy, beachbum soul and the one that feels she has to run the order of the universe every second of every day… the one that carries the weight of guilt, stress, anxiety, not feeling good enough, wanting to be better… the overachieving side of me that wears me down but doesn’t allow me to admit it without feelings of failure. 

I walk towards the elevators and I see these young men - maybe they’re in their late teens or maybe they’re in the early 20’s. They’re the guys that I - 25 years ago - would have been excited to get in the elevators with, to see if they were interested in me and if we would start talking and make plans to hang out by the pool together later… I have a friend, I’ll bring her. Ok, that sounds great… see you in a bit. I would walk out of the elevator and feel their eyes watching me go; they would be interested. But here I am now, I am a mom to boys and I look at these guys as someone’s babies not desirable young men. I am now 44 years old; I’m the mom that I would see in the elevators when I was their age. I remember I would look at the moms as being old people that somehow lacked the feelings that younger people have. I didn’t see her as just a person like me really but rather an authority figure who didn’t know how to have fun and was ready to scold anyone that seemed to be having a good time. I assume I’m that person now to these young guys and they don’t look at me as a young, vibrant, sexual woman but instead see me as an old person, a mom, someone their mom would hang out with and do mom-things with. Some younger guys do give us moms this feeling that they have an interest in us… the “I love women your age” type of young guys who don’t realize they’re not exactly complimenting you the way they think they are… these two aren’t those kind of guys. These guys have the young gals on the brain… I saw them at the pool earlier and I know which one likes which one.  Anyway, it’s funny how all of this happens and you realize how much you didn’t know you didn’t know at a younger age. It makes me laugh a little inside. And as I walk into the elevator with them, I smile and say hello. They smile and say hi back to me. I take a sip of my beer from my tumbler only to realize once it was too late that the hole was on the side and not in front of my lips as I’d thought. And now there’s beer running up my nose, down my face, and onto my shoulder and chest, dripping loudly to the floor. Yep, I’ve clearly managed to keep a tight hold on my youthful swagger. They try not to laugh, and I just make a “whoops” face, because what else can I do? I think to myself, “Well, this is new.” I am that caracature in the movies, you see, that trips and runs into poles and spills things… luckily I’m married to someone who sees the endearing part of those things that make me ME. These guys are too young to be impressed by this, and I’m too old to be truly embarrassed.  I’m cool, but they don’t know how cool I am. I’m ok with that. 

I get back down to the lazy river, and we have a grand ol’ time. I go on the water slide with the boys a few times - realizing that I’m not nearly as graceful doing that as I use to be either. The first time I ingest a significant amount of water up my nose and down my throat when I fly into the pool at the end of the slide after whizzing around this curve and that curve and getting a little bit confused about which end is up. When I finally manage to get my feet to the bottom of the pool and stand up out of the water, there’s Jose standing on the other side of the pool looking at me with a wrinkled eyebrow and smirk, shaking his head at me. I can’t tell if he’s embarrassed for me or just realizing that he doesn’t know everything about me after all. The boys think I’m the coolest mom ever, though, and I’ll take it. Plus, I'll pay for it later when my back is aching, but that was fun!

Every day we took some time in the afternoon to rest in our condo. I looked forward to napping on the patio, listening to the waves, wind, seagulls, and kids playing in the pool down below. For the most part, there was less stress on this vacation, although with 4 little boys, there’s always a certain amount of anxiety involved in constantly counting to 4 everywhere you go, especially when you’re in an unfamiliar place with lots of people and lots of water. One such event happened when we were heading back to our condo to grab some lunch; everyone was starving and couldn’t wait to get back to our room. We got into the elevator and pressed “4” for our floor and a guy with his toddler daughter came in behind us and pressed “17” for their floor. The dad was carrying fast food bags that filled the elevator with smells of chicken and burgers. Javi, being Mr. Chatty McChatterson, decided to chat him up about where the food came from, what they specifically ordered from the restaurant, whether there were fries in the bag, etc. etc. All the while, we have reached our floor, the doors have opened, I am shuttling 4 kids out of the elevator, but Javi will not move from his place until he finishes getting answers. So I’m starting to panic because I need to stop Santi from going around the corner where I can’t see him, and I also know the elevator door is not going to stay open much longer. Did I mention that there are 20-something floors in this building?? I know this guy is going to the 17th floor and who knows who will get in and push buttons on the way up. I yell at Santi to come back, and I rush back to the elevator to snatch Javi out when the little girl is now pushing buttons like it’s her job, the dad is begging her to stop, and the doors close right as I get back to them. “Great!” 

So I and my other 3 boys stand there in front of the elevator for many sweaty minutes while my mind goes all over the place trying to figure out what I’m going to do if Javi doesn’t show back up here very soon and how long I should wait before coming up with a plan. Finally the elevator doors open and a lady is standing there with Javi, smiling at me and sending him out to me. I can only assume she is either the wife of the guy with all the fast food bags or someone who got on the elevator on another floor and promised to return him to the 4th floor.  I tell her thank you so much and then Javi and I make eye contact again, him looking at me sheepishly, waiting on the lecture. I just look at him and tell him that from now on we don’t carry on long conversations in the elevator. I’m honestly too tired to say anything else at this point. The whole way back to our room, all I can think of is, “Well, this was a new one.”  I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure I went straight to the patio and fell asleep when we got back to our room. 

I was really fortunate on this trip that Jose did most of the cooking and without any complaints that I didn’t contribute a lot in this department like I do at home. I woke up from a nap one day about midway through the week to find him chopping jalapeños, cutting corn from the cob, and cooking it all up. We had stopped at a local seafood shop earlier and brought back blue crab, shrimp, and salmon to eat for dinner, so when we sat down to eat, we had quite a spread.  After dinner, Jose took a bottle of wine and 2 glasses to the patio while the boys relaxed in front of the tv just inside the condo from us.  We took in the views, talked, enjoyed the breeze, and had a glass or two of wine before heading back inside to watch tv with the boys for a while before bed time. Once we finally got them to bed and got settled in ourselves, we learned that you can spend 17 years with someone and still not have experienced every type of scenario during sexy time. 

I can tell you that, with hindsight, I’m shocked this has never happened before considering the amount of chile Jose has handled in our years together, and I also realize there is a higher risk of this happening when you’re with a chile-eating man who likes to cook… how we have gone this long without me experiencing… is there a such thing as 4th degree burns?… in my nether regions is actually a bit of a mystery and quite the accomplishment… and one that shall not be repeated, let me add. He says to me with a pained expression, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened. I swear I washed my hands multiple times!” But we all know that you can’t just get jalapeños off your hands when you’ve chopped and handled them. One of my favorite habits is to suck on my fingers after making chile rellenos, because I like the heat that comes off of my cuticles in my mouth. So of course neither of us should have been surprised when I suddenly realized I was on fire and needed to immediately go sit on an ice pack. This was the first night of my life where I slept with a frozen washcloth between my legs. And, once again, I found myself thinking, “Well, this is a new one.” As I sit here and type this 2 weeks after the fact, I am just now completely recovered from that incident. Consider this your PSA.

During our weeklong vacation, we had an eventful and eventless time, simultaneously. We packed a lot in while also making a point to keep it simple and low key. It was definitely what I personally needed, and I think it did us all some good to just slow down. It did prove to me once and for all, however, that even when you plan for as stress-free of a trip as possible, you just can’t foresee everything that’s going to happen. You are going to have those “Well, this is a new one” moments every day. Well, at least we did and will continue to for our whole lives. Because we can’t seem to have a boring experience no matter how hard we try. 

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