the dirty laundry show

Two days ago marked the exact halfway point of our adventure. Feels like WAY more than two weeks have gone by. But I’ve noticed the days are starting to fly faster – a symptom of growing accustomed to life here and settling into a routine. The first week of our trip, everything felt exciting, unfamiliar, and a little (or a lot) scary. We spent a good deal of time figuring out how to survive day-to-day: where to get groceries and fresh water, how to wash our dishes and brush our teeth without getting e-coli. The next week, we started to feel more at ease and began taking some risks: street food, driving farther distances to see cool sights, chatting with strangers.

This week, the ordinariness of life crept back in – those little resentments or frustrations that exist at home peeped their heads out to let us know they didn’t stay behind. All of that came with us, buried beneath the “aliveness” and awe we initially felt on Day One. Small aspects of the journey that didn’t bother us before are becoming emotional sticking points. The neighbor’s dog is obnoxious and barks all night (and will scarf any food you leave by the pool since its owners let it run free around the complex all day). The bed is horribly uncomfortable and leaves you feeling like a walking zombie. Every activity on our to-do list costs money (and you’re never sure if you’re being taken advantage of by the aggressive tour guide salespeople). It’s exhausting being nickel-and-dimed to death over trying to swim with some m*therf*cking turtles in the m*therf*cking FREE public ocean!!!

But hidden among the mess and strife of “making it work,” some truly magical memories are made. I mean, I hope. There’s so much the kids don’t remember about past trips that rocked my world – who can say which pieces they’ll actually hold onto? What moments will stick? At this point, they’re starting to miss sleeping in their own rooms and, as Joey reminds us fairly often, the PS4 sitting dormant in the downstairs playroom awaiting his triumphant return. I remember being in their shoes, dragged by my parents from destination to destination without much say in the matter. It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy those trips. But you don’t realize until much later in life what a phenomenal and precious gift it is to travel free of responsibilities like managing logistics and paying for the airfare. You get to soak in all of the wonders with none of the worries, doubts, or failed expectations to cloud your experience.

Still, from where I sit now, it does seem like the free ride weakens the power of these little existential experiments. When you’re the one taking the risk, footing the bill, poring over lodging options and activities, you’re the one who feels the pure exhilaration of making a great call – or absorbs all the valuable lessons from accidental missteps. In a lot of ways, like so many other parts of life, travel is a brave act of learning how to lose gracefully; to make the best of situations that don’t measure up to your imagination while persistently resisting the habitual need to take it personally and forcing yourself to keep going, staying emotionally receptive to the moments of bliss peeking through mountains of sargassum seaweed. Hearing your kids practicing their Spanish with the 6-year-old girl from two doors down. Watching them really get into crafting a fairly ingeniously-engineered open-air fish tank for the Checkered Pufferfish (Sandy and Bart) they’ve just caught from the ocean. Finding the best vegan mango and hazelnut gelato you’ve ever tasted in your life and forcing the shop employee, Pablo, to patiently allow you to botch his native language.

Ultimately, we didn’t leave any of our problems or relational rough parts behind. We simply managed a brief hiatus from focusing on them (plus a welcome escape from the snow and those repetitive schedule commitments that wear on you after a while). As much as I imagine myself becoming a different person in fresh locales, I still don’t love getting close to my neighbors so I’m forced into “stop and chats” every time I leave my casita. I don’t love that I’m too nervous to drive here and have to rely on my husband to squire me everywhere like a caricature of a 1950s housewife. I don’t love that I’ve reached an age where I can’t seem to explore new cuisines without a sidecar of Pepto – or snorkel the choppy ocean without feeling queasy. When did I become such a delicate flower?

No matter. This is what adventure entails, whether your passion is hiking the backwoods of Montana or sewing quilts from old clothing cast-offs. Things won’t go the way you expect. You’ll discover pieces of yourself that surprise you, in both delightful and horrifying ways. You’ll press on. Like raising children or paying taxes or landing that work gig, the difficulties and challenges are what make the achievement – with all its imperfections and mistakes – feel awesome. In the end, you don’t really remember the parts that sucked. Only the high of making it work.