Back to Reality

My girls’ weekend away to the beach was wonderful. The glow of my dream weekend lasted for all of 24 hours, right up until Monday afternoon when I was on the telephone with one of my aunts trying to secure the future babysitting services of my cousin, and I had to keep interrupting our conversation to plead with my boys to please, for the love of all that is holy, KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON ALREADY.

They wouldn’t keep their clothes on. Aidan or Brennan (I am not sure which one, but I know with some reasonable certainty that it wasn’t Griffin) made up some new game that involved running around the house in their underwear screaming at loud volumes and scaring the pants (literally) right off of each other. Griffin even managed to express his desire to join in the naked game by shouting “off” at me and lifting his hands up to the sky to try and take off his shirt.

I shudder when I think of what my life looks (sounds?) like to the outside world. My aunt finally gave up on our call and promised to call me back at a later time. She never called back. I think my inability to get an entire sentence out without stopping to shout at my children has made me an annoying telephone conversationalist. Slightly.

But the glow of vacation! The glow! It was a good glow. It was a glow of naps, beach, dinners out and about, girl talk until midnight each night and sunburned noses. It was a glow of basking in the company of a girlfriend I see way, way too little. It was a great glow.

I realized a few things on my vacation. I used to hate being trapped on a plane for hours during travels, but I now embrace the travels as an indulgence when I am traveling alone. I can sit in a seat in relative peace for hours, watch the Food Network or HGTV all I want and some nice lady will bring me a diet coke? Blissful.

I also realized that my ability, prechildren, to sit for hours and devour book after book may be gone. I have multitasked my life to such a degree over the last five years that I may have lost my ability to simply be still. I feel a little shell shocked to not have a million and one needs or demands to attend to all at once. My mind and body were twitching with the force of staying still and reading. By day three, I had regained some comfort with stillness in small amounts, but I wasn’t at my top, prechildren state. (I still managed to read all four books I had brought along for the trip though. Diane and I even read, side by side in beach chairs, the same book for the morning of day one – Jennifer Weiner’s Certain Girls. Sadly, I have to report – it wasn’t Good in Bed.)

There was a bit of irony for our girls’ vacation when I checked into the rental car agency, reservation in hand, and was told they sold out of every car imaginable, except for a handful of minivans. There is something a lot funny about going away without your kids for the weekend and driving a suburban assault vehicle for the duration of your trip. Heh.

But for now, girls’ weekend in paradise is a nice, fuzzy memory for me to hold onto as I face the reality of my life. I have to admit – it’s a pretty nice reality to return to, naked, screaming children and all.