A Small Accomplishment on Widow Road

I accomplished something this weekend that has been hanging over my head since I lost my husband.

An entire weekend…overnights included…with just my children. No extra adult help. Just us.

I know this may not sound like much, but for someone who is a paranoid planner…taking 3 small children away from the old comfort zone is something I’m pretty damn proud of. And I’m beyond thankful that it went so well.

Don’t get me wrong…we have gone places. I haven’t restricted us to the Denver-metro area. But every time we’ve gone on an “overnight” there’s always been another adult involved. And I really wanted to know that I could do this on my own. I wanted to have a couple of days of just us…without having to worry about anyone else’s agenda.

In reality, I’m just starting to get to the point where traveling with the kids sounds at all appealing. When my sister told me a few years ago that she and her husband were going to take her 1 year old and 3 year old to Hawaii for 9 days…I have to say…that sounded like hell with a cocktail umbrella thrown in. So, even if my husband were here, I think we’d still be sticking to more local attractions.

For this trip, I felt like I had pretty much set us up for success. I chose a place only an hour and a half (or one DVD) away, booked a hotel with an indoor pool, and made a plan to take the kids to a little amusement park we had never been to up in the mountains that has a Christmas theme.

I know that sounds odd…but the fact that it’s this close to Halloween meant that there were no lines and that my kids could spin in little ornament-shaped cars on a giant Christmas tree until they themselves were green. Trust me…I was a hero this weekend. And I would personally like to write a letter to the designer of that place (who I’m sure is probably with my husband by now since the park is so old), thanking him for giving me the empowering feeling of providing this raging success of a weekend. Not only could I manage this place on my own…every “big kid” ride had a “little kid” ride right next to it. So while my 2 oldest sat strapped into a Tilt-A-Whirl designed to make them throw up the $5 ice cream I had just bought them, my youngest could mosey around on a plastic horse that went in a slow circle and feel like a champ.

Genius.

We had the usual arguments (“No, son, we are not going to eat McDonalds at every single meal”) and, once we got to the hotel, countless trips to the car. But for the most part, we just had a fantastic time. I think this is because my kids are at that golden age when, really, their expectations are low (Nick Jr. is much more exciting on a hotel T.V. that’s, in reality, much smaller than the one we have at home) and their excitement levels are high (“What do you mean we get to eat Subway in our hotel room????”). I should do this more often before they hit the age when a big trip to the Comfort Inn is met with an eye-roll and jacked-up volume on the iPod.

Going new places after a loss (I would imagine any loss, but I only know this one) is filled with heart-catching moments. You’re either passing by things that remind you of something you did with your spouse, or you’re passing by things wishing your spouse could be there to enjoy them with you.

This little road trip not only made me wish my husband could be here to see the delight on the faces of his children while they raced around on a mini roller coaster, but the trip down was a short ride through memory lane for me. From passing by his alma mater (where we first met) to riding past restaurants where I remembered we liked the margarita glasses As I drove past the hotel where I got ready for his graduation ball and he surprised me with the most beautiful bouquet of roses I have ever received (before or since), I had the temptation to just pull off the highway and stare.

But whether doing something I’d done before (with him) or something new (without), remembering him or wishing he was with us, I felt like he was there. Just along for the ride (but, unfortunately not able to help with any of the luggage). I felt like I grew a little bit this weekend, in my own little widowed world, and confirmed what I’ve been thinking these last few years: That life has changed, but I’ve changed with it. And that even though he’s not here, there is still joy to be had.

And now that I’ve figured out that I can be a big girl and actually get from point A to point B without someone yelling at me because I can’t read a map, there is just one thing I keep thinking over and over.

Look out Disneyland. We’re gettin’ ready for ya.

My Bags Are Packed. Should I Check My Problems Or Carry Them On?

I’m a road tripper. Hand me a map, a bag, and some pesos and I’m there.

I think I get it from my dad. We’re such tall, poor people that if we can’t sit in First Class and get the extra leg room for 4 hours, we’d rather sit in a mini-van filled with family tension, (but all you can eat BBQ along the way) for 24 hours.

You can judge all you want. But I don’t want to hear from the short people who have leg room in coach.

Anyway, B4K (that would be “Before Kids”) I would take to the open road. Feel the wind blow through my hair as I smelled the gas leak from my ’80 Toyota. Pack a bag with nothing but contact solution and dreams. And hope to heaven that I would have enough gas money to get back.

I’ve had a lot of memorable road trips in my life. They were all, at the time, a little slice of hell. But now that I’m older, I can appreciate the value of each story. I covet those memories. I cherish them. And I hope they’ll make me a lot of money when I sell them off down the road.

(There’s evil laughing in my head right now.)

Anyway.

One of the most memorable trips I’ve had was at the beginning of my freshman year in college. I’d had a rough week and I was itching to just go somewhere (I had what I now call the “yips”…an irrational desire for action of any kind that usually leads me to consuming way too much wine). So I blasted into my dorm room after my last class on a Friday afternoon and said to my roommate, “Pack your bag. We’re going somewhere.”

What she should have done was smile, nod, and run like hell.

Anyway, I can’t remember whose idea it was exactly to bring the Magic 8 Ball. It was probably mine. Along with my creativity comes a lot of thought processes that don’t make any sense at all. (I choose to not think of this as the tipping point to being insane, but that I make life colorful for all of those around me. You’re welcome.) The next thing I know, we’re at a gas station, filling up her Dodge Shadow (which had less pick-up than a tricycle), buying a map, and asking the all-knowing Magic 8 Ball which way we should turn.

This went on until our evening in Northern Colorado turned into 3 AM in Somewhere Texas.

We ended up in a motel just south of the Texas border. “Seedy” would have been the 5 star word for it. The TV was chained to the dresser. There was questionable reading material in the nightstand (if that was the Bible…I didn’t know that we could procreate that way). And I think envelopes would have been more plush than our pillows.

Obviously…I’m a Best Western kind of a girl.

Once our trip had reached our unknown destination, I sat on my bed that had more springs than mattress, and waited to feel better. After all, I had traveled 6 hours…surely what ever issues I’d had, had been locked away in my dorm room for the weekend. And if they’d managed to follow me to Texas…you would think they would have had the sense to at least check into the Holiday Inn. I thought I had gotten away from everything. That even though that Dodge Shadow wasn’t very fast, surely it could out-run my problems.

And you know what I figured out?

Problems have no borders. And they obviously don’t care if breakfast is included. Because there they were…sitting right next to me.

When my husband died, I thought about that trip a lot. How I did everything in my 18-year-old power to get away from what was bothering me. And how it didn’t work. When I lost him, my first inclination was to get the hell out of town and leave the whole mess behind me. You know… “fight or flight” and I definitely didn’t feel like I had it in me to fight. But then 18-year-old in me reminded the 31-year-old me that I could run all I wanted to…but if I didn’t take a stand against my problems and show them who was the boss, they’d take over me.

I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason and that all of our life experiences should teach us something. And that I took that trip so that I would know now I had to face my life, confront my problems. Or they would follow me everywhere, waiting to be noticed.

I’m not saying that taking a little vacation now and then as a distraction or to give yourself something to look forward to isn’t a good idea. But the purpose of “getting away” can’t be to get away from what you carry inside. If it is, I’m worried you might be disappointed.

And if you’re not sure about my theory, please test it out at a cheaper motel. I’m only glad that I learned this lesson young, in a little pay-by-the-hour hell hole in Texas and not in the Bahamas or something. That would have completely pissed me off.