Anyway....on one post of the vacation a friend of mine said Hub and I looked like "poster kids for living the good life in retirement". And I replied, "Remember, FB is 99% highlight reel!" And it is. Some folks post about life's challenges, but not very often. Most posts have a positive intention; a happy face or an educational and/or inspirational message. Photos are usually framed to best effect and selfies can be taken over and over to get the best pose.
So, in the interest of revealing the "real" behind the "reel" let me list the ways in which the vacation was NOT the tropical perfection it might have appeared to be:
1. Packing. I do not like packing and I tend to pack really light. Too light this time. I got really sick of my clothes. I keep notes year to year and my notes said to bring less this year, so I did. But I forgot to factor that last year we were there for 11 days and this year we stayed 16 days. It made a difference.
2. Flying to get to/from Hawaii. Hate it. Hate every single thing about it, starting with the drive to the airport.
3. Clouds, wind, rain. OK, it was warm even when it was cool. You know, that stuff is relative. I haven't had that warm breeze on bare skin feeling since last July. But a couple days the clouds didn't lift and mist and showers and wind made for less than ideal beach weather. In my mind I always picture blue sky, sunshine, and long, cooling dips in the pool. (Kauai is the "Garden Isle" for a reason -- it rains.)
4. Somewhat cramped quarters. Our timeshare is a "hotel conversion" meaning the units used to be hotel rooms. They remodeled to include small kitchenettes with a sink, microwave, and small 'fridge, but basically it's a one-room studio apartment, which feels smaller the more our stuff gets strewn about. Also we have to make umpteen trips to the store for supplies due to sparse storage space. BUT, we have an oceanfront view that is to die for. Trade-offs.
5. Costco trips. I do not like grocery shopping. Hub does most of it at home, but in Kauai it seems we combine the Costco runs with other outings so I am generally there every 2-3 days to buy more fresh fish, salads, yogurt, etc. Our staples. (See dearth of storage space above.)
6. Lugging. We could pay for valet parking and lugging assistance, but we, like 99% of guests, don't do that. We park in the big lot and schlep our stuff from our unit to the lot (or vice verse) which my handy Fitbit tells me is 1/3 mile one-way. This means anything we take on outings, we lug. We lug groceries. We lug snorkel gear. We drag suitcases. I tell myself "more steps!" on the daily count, but sometimes, well, I'd just like it all to be a bit more convenient, cuz it sucks to forget something in the room and have to go back.
7. Noisy neighbors. Generally the people here are pretty quiet. But we had a trio of women next door to us part of the time who seemed to be on a bender of general LOUD hilarity, starting around 7 a.m. One of them leaned over her railing one evening, drink in hand, to inform me (as I sat quietly reading on our balcony) that they left their husbands home and were here for a good time. OK, I get that. But not all of us have a good time at such high decibels! With everyone having their doors open to the ocean and breeze, voices and raucous laughter carry. The walls are well insulated for sound, but we could still hear them through our adjoining wall, which is rarely the case, so we knew they were louder than the general population. Annoying. The older I get the quieter I like it.
8. People. My introvert needs alone time. But I didn't come to Hawaii to sit in my room. So I have to mingle with people, observing if not actually interacting. I already wrote about the day I saw a wife berating her husband publicly. I also had to witness a mom repeatedly smacking her 4 year old little boy in the chest with a half-empty plastic water bottle admonishing him to "stop crying" -- the logic of which has never made sense to me, not to mention the heartbreak I felt at this scene of "discipline", which in my mind is abuse. This kind of thing sticks with me, being the highly sensitive person I am. (I saw lots of loving families and lovely people too. Aloha-Spirit prevailed, mostly.)
9. Nighttime adjustments. Not my bed. Not my bedroom. I couldn't ever get totally comfortable in the bed and fought with the pillow. I was either too hot (with door open to night air) or too cold (with AC blowing on me). It was a bit noisy with door open (crashing waves, cars in the distance, people's voices as they walked by, roosters crowing all night long) or with door closed (AC fan starting and stopping). The built-in nightlight in the bathroom was too bright, so I had to close the bathroom door. The peepholes in the door seemed to create a laser light effect shining the hall light directly into my eyes as I lay in bed. The WiFi router flashed a green light all night on the wall. What's up with all that light??? We all have our idiosyncrasies (me = light and noise) which get amplified away from home.
10. Homesick. This time I actually did better than usual. But there were a few days (the two when I was not feeling well and spent all morning in bed, especially) when I just wanted to be home in my own space. I thought of my friends and family every day and was so thankful for texts and FB to keep me connected. I missed my yoga studio, my coffee with friends, our family dinners, hugging my grandgirls.
So, yeah. I realize how absolutely fortunate I am to be able to travel and to take this annual trip to Hawaii. I appreciate it with all my heart. But it's not perfect. Nothing is. Beware the highlight reel; there is real behind the camera.
At least that's the view from here...©
What an informative and realistic recap of a vacation. I can identify with some of it from memories of why we ended up buying a motor home instead of renting motels as we traveled around America. Never in a hundred years would I have connected Costco with a vacation in Kauai!
ReplyDeleteIn the past year gotten to the point where I sleep with a face mask because lights and before my husband died, I used ear plugs. Not sure I'd feel safe doing either away from home where my four legged alarm would let me know if I was in danger.
I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I like how it keeps us in contact with extended family but I hate getting to know a few of them on a political level that I can't respect.
Costco...I know, right? But it's one of the places where tourists and locals mingle together in a "real life" way and for that reason I like it. For any other reason, not so much.
DeleteI can't do a face mask OR earplugs. Both are uncomfortable to me and I am anxious about cutting off two of my senses in the vulnerable state of sleep. Guess I'm weird that way.