Straycation

For a little over 20 years my family has kept an annual summer trip tradition thanks to my dad and his big sisters family. So many great posts to be shared about the trip in general but today I’ll be specific. Each year I’d pack my kids and all their equipment up and schlep it to the Eastern Sierra’s for two weeks.  Part of my ritual was to walk down to the payphone each night to call the husband back home who could never go because he was working. Twice in twenty years he joined us. Most of the time we fought about how long Id be gone, what was he gonna do for food, what about the laundry? I’d worry about what he was doing without my watchful eye. How far would he stray this year. My kids bathed in the kitchen sink and learned how to bait hooks and clean fish. Their dad learned the boundaries of what would become jokingly referred to later by my friends and I as his “straycation”.  (Spoiler alert .. He did the same stuff he was doing when I was home, just without my prying eyes). I never fully relaxed despite my parents valiant efforts to allow me naps and quiet time. What a shame I could never let go of what wasn’t mine to control to begin with. One year he threw a party for a young neighbors birthday and forgot to turn the spa off afterwards. For a week. That was expensive. I found out later that he regularly hosted parties in my absences or just never came home at all. After my divorce I went back to work and the two week trips were left to just the kids and my parents but we kept the tradition alive. I’d join for a weekend  or longer if I was able. Slowly, I started to relax a little more. No more payphone  calls for bad news. This year, for the first time I have invited a guest. My boyfriend is joining us. He’s flying to California just for the trip. The point in this very abbreviated story is this - the people who want you and your time make it happen. They show up. No prodding or pleading required. No watchful eyes necessary because the words match the deeds. I spent too long trying to put a square peg into a round hole. What a disservice I did to that square peg and to myself. Like the saying goes...if you have to force it- it’s probably shit. Cheers to traditions and the gift of family. Eastern Sierra’s here I come.