I’d had brilliant plans to return to Vietnam this year–go with a group of girlfriends, show off my favorite cities, visit with my beloved orphan friends (oh, how I still miss Lan and Tu!)–but one job loss after another thwarted those plans. It was too much money, too much time away from my kids. I couldn’t justify it. Luckily for me, the GuyFriend was being asked to take some of that vacation time he’s been accruing. He did, and I got to come along for a visit to Belize in Central America.
While the vacation sat in the future, I ignored it, didn’t really plan for it. There was hope that some job or another would come along and I didn’t want to get all excited for a vacation that might not happen. Months longer than I expected to be looking for a job, I still am…so, as the date approached for our departure, I figured “Why not?” The job search has been overwhelmingly frustrating, money is running low, my son can’t find work, the kids are arguing and I’ve never had a real vacation as an adult. The travels with the kids have been work related, except for the week or two at the end of each visit to Southeast Asia. But as I found out, traveling with kids and traveling with another adult are vastly different propositions. I gave all the planning to him–one, so I didn’t have to stress about that,t too; two, he was the one paying for it anyway.
From all the crazy, frustrating, suffocating stress of life, we flew away and landed here, in Bullet Falls. And this is how I started my first grown-up vacation. It couldn’t have been a better escape, for both of us.
