That time of the year

There are three more weeks of summer camp before school starts on the 20th. Then two weeks before my event. I’m starting to get random waves of nausea, am not sleeping well, and am having anxiety dreams. It’s that time of the year.

Today I had in my calendar to go to the rec center to sign up for the afterschool program for both boys - it’s opening day for registration. I went after lunch and was informed that it was full. Full! Apparently there was a long line into the office at 8 AM and all the spots filled up immediately. This is the same place that two years ago always had availability. Last year they were full by the first day of school...this year it filled up in minutes. I don’t know why I’m surprised; my event is having a similar trajectory. However, I am now screwed. 

I spent the entire afternoon filling out forms and scrounging around for options only to discover the only other option - the crazy expensive STAR program - is also full and has been since school ended. 

I emailed the rec center director and she told me she’ll look at the list and see what she can do, but won’t know anything until next week. I’d like to think she’ll squeeze us in just because we’ve been using all their services for years - camps, preschool, after school - and luckily my kids are easy and well liked by the staff. But I know all of this means nothing if they just don’t have the staff or budget. 

So I’ve been trying to reconcile myself to a very different school year. I’m very fortunate that I don’t need afterschool care - only just for my mental health. I can technically pick them up every day. But the hard times are when I travel, and these first two weeks of school before my event. I remember how hard it was for three months picking up Theo at 2, 1 and occasionally noon after school last year; the idea of having two rambunctious boys running amock for hours every day while I can’t get anything done positively fills me with dread. Also, it’s no joke asking the BF to leave work at noon or one to pick up kids every couple of weeks when I’m out of town. I mean...he can do it. But ugh. 

I’m trying to make an attitude adjustment. It’ll be fun! Our evenings will be more relaxed! I can bake cookies! They can do chores! They’ll be getting older and easier all the time! It’ll be ok! But yeah, trying really hard to fight off despair. What on earth would I do if I had a 9-5 job??? I can’t even think about it. 

It’s funny because I’m on exactly the other end in my work - my whole life right now is dealing with endless desperate emails from people wanting in to my full contests and our full hotel block. The people pleaser in me is not pleased. Maybe that’s what the nausea is about. 

Hawaii

Vacations are a fascinating magnifying glass look into your life. Everything is intensified - the highs are higher and the lows are lower. And yet we insist on doing this to ourselves. Maybe we’re bored? 

We have only two more nights here on Oahu. So far the highlights have been:

Swimming in a waterfall at Waimea valley

Today’s snorkeling at Shark’s Cove

Our magical yurt stay (four nights there, now we’re in a pretty dumpy beach cottage on Oahu’s north shore)

Bobby getting more confident in his swimming and having a blast in the waves

The not so great parts have been:

Both kids, but Theo in particular, being exceptionally whiny, complaining, and ill-behaved. I feel like all we’ve been doing is angrily barking out orders that are completely ignored and then meting out punishments. But then I look around and all I see is mothers  grabbing kids’ arms and leaning down and hissing in kids’ ears full of rage, so apparently everyone is having the same vacation we are.

Theo may in fact be sick. He was running a fever for a couple of nights and appeared to have swollen lymph nodes - we were seconds away from packing him off to an ER one night - but seems to have rallied at this point. It would explain his exceptional crankiness.

We are also having to make Bobby sit on the toilet to poop after every meal and in the morning and at night, all so he doesn’t soil himself, which he’s done a couple of times anyway. It’s fucking exhausting. 

My birthday was a bit of a hot mess. The BF as usual did not plan ahead and spent much of the day wasting time frantically trying to come up with something for us to do - it ended up being a desultory trip to Waikiki involving a glass bottom boat ride (we saw absolutely nothing - but it was fun being on a boat) and a cheesy magic show plus dinner which was all meat and therefore inedible to me. The kids got a kick out of it so it wasn’t a total loss but...yeah. He also had a complete freak out meltdown trying to find the magic show during which I had to say to him, “hey! Don’t you dare say ‘what the fuck’ to me!” and had to confront him for the bajillionth time about his smoking, which has been way out of control on this trip. He agreed to dial it back. On trips like this I see how incredibly high maintenance and helpless he is, and also how badly he handles stress. I’ve had to bail us out and take over much of the time here, which is typical for us. Normally I don’t mind being the leader - I’m comfortable in that role - but I had hoped he could handle some planning for once. Clearly he can’t so I won’t let that happen again. 

So we had a couple of pretty shitty days and I was feeling pretty down about it. And yet he’s done so much right on this trip and been such a help and loving dad to these kids. It makes me feel like an asshole for fixating on that one moment he snapped and wiping out the 1,000 things he did right, forgetting how totally impossible a trip like this would be without another committed parent-figure (trust me - with two barely swimming kids on a beach, you really, really need two adults!).

Much to my (expected) horror, our new beach cottage is full of giant waterbugs. He killed many of them last night. I for sure could not have handled that on my own without completely losing it. I could picture myself throwing sleeping kids in the car and high-tailing it to the nearest Marriott.

I’ve decided relationships are a lot like trips to Hawaii. Beautiful beaches, soft breezes, shave ice, waterfalls, tacos...and waterbugs. You kind of can’t have this beautiful place without the nasty tropical underbelly. Doesn’t mean you have to love the waterbugs...you just have to accept they’re there and try to focus on the good stuff. 

Aging

In a week I’ll be on Oahu in a yurt. There I will ring in my 47th birthday. 

I realize I’m still “young”. But I feel old and out of it. I’m having a hard time with aging at the moment. I think part of it is because culture is moving so quickly right now, it’s impossible to keep up, and that causes a certain panic that I’ve recognized in older people before. Add this to my rapidly diminishing eyesight, my inability to lose weight, and fear of oncoming menopause, and yeah - not feeling the whole aging thing.

Still - I need to think about the positives of being this age, especially on the heels of good choices I made as a younger person. I bought a house when it was still possible in LA, and hopefully that house will be paid off by the time I’m 52. Then I will have lots of options for myself and college for the kids. I started a business in my 20s, toughed it out through the hard times, and am now reaping the benefits of two decades of hard work. I had two children that will hopefully be a comfort to me in my old age. Being older isn’t all terrible. In fact, it’s mostly great. I signed up for more personal training sessions, am going to start running, and will double down on my diet once I get back from our trip. I’m not going to go quietly into that dark night, not yet. 

The boys and I had an enjoyable beach day on our own today. Boy, are beach days less physically demanding now that I have help carrying stuff and don’t have babies strapped to me! They played well together and then we went to the In N Out where you can watch airplanes land at LAX, then home. 

Theo is attempting no pull ups tonight, on his own incentive. Hold the good thought for us!