Vacation (All I Ever Wanted)

Last year, Bee and I spent 10 days on a cruise to Mexico.  It was a vacation that, quite honestly, I cajoled and then tricked Bee into taking, which – if you ask me – is a great way to start any trip with your husband.

Here’s the thing: this cruise went, among other places, to Zihuatanejo – a place I’ve been obsessed with ever since seeing The Shawshank Redemption.  My obsession became a nearly perilous fixation once I learned that a scene from When A Man Loves A Woman was filmed there.  And not just any scene: the scene featuring one of those infinity pools: the scene that first started me on my obsession with infinity pools.

Now my unhealthy passion with Zihuatanejo was a dangerous mania.  I had to go there.  The very wellbeing of my soul depended on it.

What held me back the most was spending money on a cruise when I had just quit my job.  When I quit, however, I had about six weeks of unused vacation days: vacation I had always felt too guilty to use.  My company had to pay me for those unused days when I left . . . so I realized that now was the perfect time to take that time and use that money for the long vacation I would never take while working.

And my parents, innocently optimistic, happily agreed to take Mr. C for us!

And the cruise line was having a fantastic deal on this trip!  But you had to book now!

So I brought it up to Bee.  Then I pestered him.  Then commenced the harassing, followed quickly by the be-all-and-end-all of healthy married-couple communication: the nagging.

But I couldn’t get him excited enough about a cruise to gleefully agree to it.  And, although I was dying to go, I had enough of my own insecurities holding me back.  We went around in circles, but neither one of us could make a positive decision.

Then, two days before the end of the big cruise sale, I finally realized that one of us needed to sh!t or get off the pot, and – based on past history – that person would probably have to be me.  And I wanted to make this fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime trip with my husband.  This might be our only chance.

So, early on the morning of the last day of the sale, I snuck down to the basement with our phone, my credit card, and a pounding heart . . . and booked the cruise.  I thought about waiting for our cruise documents to arrive before telling Bee.  I also considered telling him as a month anniversary present.  In the end, I managed to hold out for about three hours before blurting out the news that day over lunch.  Bee was . . . cautious.  But – the decision now out of his control – he was willing to try the vacation.

Still feeling guilty, we fretted about it for those two months leading up to the cruise. We vaguely told most people who asked that we were flying to San Diego, and might go down to Mexico for a bit (which wasn’t a total lie: we were flying to San Diego to catch the cruise ship).  We kept asking each other if it was fair to take a cruise when we’d never taken S.B. on a major vacation.  We wondered if it was right to saddle my parents with Mr. C for so long.

We felt unsure all the way up until the night before we were to fly out from my parents’.  Then we realized it would be foolish to go back now, so we decided just to enjoy the trip.  As soon as we arrived at the airport the next morning, Vacation Officially Began.

And, as it turned out, taking that vacation was the best thing Bee and I ever did for ourselves.  We had the most fantastic, relaxing, memorable time.  I had worked hard ahead of time to research things we could do on our limited budget, and we found ways to go sight-seeing, zip-lining, mule-riding, and whale-watching for cheap(er).

By the end of it, Bee and I swore we’d always go away once a year together, even if it was only for a few days.  We might not again have the means for an elaborate vacation, but we’d at least make sure to have the time.

Which explains our ‘vacation’ this year:

Yes, we wanted to spend a week in Zihuatanejo or San Francisco or New York . . . but instead we eeked out 24 hours in a tiny college town with a Main Street that was three blocks long, sleeping in a non-smoking room that smelled decidedly non-non-smoking.

It was the best we could do.  We knew, should we have any interest in staying in their will, not to force Mr. C on my parents this year and then jauntily gallivant away.  That left our only other option: Mr. C’s former caretaker, Kay: the lovely young woman who watched him from the time he was 4 months old until I was able to quit when he was two; the person who was his first best friend and who loved him almost as if he were her own child; the selfish creature who had moved with her husband five hours away from us last fall, leaving us bereft of an in-town babysitter.

It was high time for a visit, anyway, so Bee, Mr. C and I found a five-day stretch last week when we had no pressing appointments, and made the plans to drive up.  We allotted one day for meandering up, one day for hurrying back, and two days spent with our friends; leaving 24 hours for Bee and me to drive to the next town over for our ultra-romantic, couples-only vacation.

To our credit, we did our best to enjoy our mini-vacation.  We laughed about it when our waitress forgot the bacon on our B.L.T. (the new, vegetarian option!).  We didn’t grouse that the weather was crummy and the air smelled of the neighboring paper mill.  We weren’t concerned that there was nothing to do but slowly wander the shops on Main Street (a ‘luxury’ impossible with Mr. C in tow). 

I was particularly proud that Bee insisted on staying in that sketchy motel instead of the nicer one on the outskirts of town that cost double: we used the money we saved to buy gourmet dinner items at the local Co-Op deli, then eat in our room while we watched My Cousin Vinny on our portable dvd player.  And Bee only wanted to return one of the over-priced, decidedly-undelicious items we bought from said offensive deli and consumed in said questionable motel room.

WHY did the motel feel the need to place this on the floor by the bed?  Particularly when there was no way to GET under the bed?

Delicious!

And, although we had a good time and were particularly thrilled to hang out with our old friends (and give Mr. C and Kay the chance to have themselves to themselves), this is not a vacation we will happily talk about for years.  We may laugh about it in the future, but there will be no wistful ‘Remember whens’ attached to this trip.

. . . except maybe, "Remember when we gorged ourselves at breakfast?"

But maybe that’s a good thing.  Because I don’t think I can really enjoy another ‘big’ vacation with Bee until I feel I’ve earned it.  Which means I need to get my butt in gear this year and help Bee more with his business.  We need to save the money to take S.B. and Mr. C across the country this summer.  We need to replenish our savings for next winter, when Bee’s business dies down again.  So, if I work really hard and get all that done and still have some extra money, maybe next winter will finally be Bee’s and my chance to see the Caribbean. 

Or maybe the winter after that.

The local Mexican restaurant: the closest we got to the tropics this year.