more about the trip

our not so wonderful trip to disneyworld.

so K’s grandmother had me room with her at the hotel.

turns out, she had a cold, so she was coughing through the night. when she wasnt coughing, she was snoring. when you have a cold, you snore. she also likes a nightlight on, since this was an unfamiliar place.

it was awful.

the constant coughing and snoring woke me up every night, all night long. an hour here, an hour there, and then I couldnt get back to sleep.

the night light kept me up as well, since light is very stimulating to my brain.

pretty much I have had sleep deprivation for over a week. which really isnt good. it tends to not get better right away, I didnt sleep well last night, our first night back. I think I’ll likely need to take sleeping pills every night for at least a week to try to get my body used to sleeping again.

and yeah, I’m getting married in a week. really not what I needed right now at all.

I finally broke down at the airport. the crying fit I was holding inside all week.

due to the bad weather on the east coast, our first flight was delayed for over an hour. we missed our second flight and were stuck in Atlanta.

for hours.

we were on standby for 3 planes and didnt get a seat until the third plane.

we were supposed to land in california at 530pm on wednesday. we landed at 920pm. then we had a long shuttle ride, which finally dropped us off nearly last at 1130pm where we picked up the car and drove it home (we had to leave our car at a safe place because you cant park your car on our city streets for more than 3 days at a time or you might get towed). we got home around midnight. we had left the hotel at 930am and travelled all day. 15 hours.

so there we were in Atlanta, and I had been in excruciating pain for hours, and nothing helped. not large doses of ibuprofen, or tylenol, or even a gin and tonic. I didnt have any stronger pain medications with me. I had pounding, extreme pain in my head and neck from 3am that day until I finally got home and took a valium at midnight.

and all the frustrations from the trip, all the exhaustion, and sleep deprivation, and stress with K’s parents, and everything, came out. and I sat with K and just cried and cried. he held me, and reassured me, and understood. K is amazing. he knew I’d been holding it in all the time, knew I needed to cry, and knew how to reassure me.

every so often I’d just start crying all over again.

one thing that upset me. on the last day, as we were saying goodbye to K’s very cool aunt S, she said she wished she could come to the wedding but it was either go to disney or go to our wedding.

SERIOUSLY?

like, aunt S loves K. she adores him.

so why would she miss his wedding?

why the hell did we all go on this ridiculous trip!

I mean, seriously, if K’s grandmother wanted to get the whole family together and foot the bill for it, why the hell would she do so right before our wedding? and why would everyone choose to miss the wedding, a one time, one day only event, to go to some ridiculous theme park?

ok, even if you love disney like crazy for some reason, seriously, the damn park will be there forever. you could do this ridiculous family reunion there anytime.

a wedding is a major family event that will not be there forever, it’s one day, it’s a few hours, it’s welcoming a new member into your family.

and you’re standing there telling me that you chose disney over that?

yeah. I’m pissed.

while I know my wedding is not the center of everybody’s life, and all, it’s one of those big things. there’s a reason people talk about births, deaths and weddings together.

and the really sad thing is, aunt S really wished she could go. but basically she gave up her vacation time to this awful trip to disney instead.

yeah, I know, she could have made another choice. and I know she loves disney with an incomprehensible fervor, she spent her honeymoon there after all.

ugh.

it just breaks my heart on the principle of the thing.

say this wasnt my wedding at all. say this was K’s cousin.

I would think it quite as pitiful if a group of 14 people from this cousin’s family all got together 2 weeks before her wedding for some crazy family trip, and then told her, ‘oh gee, sorry, we couldnt go to your wedding because we wanted to go to vegas instead.’

doesnt that seem extremely rude? it does to me. I’d be just as appalled and offended if it were someone else and not my own wedding.

it’s the whole value thing. people are important. family is important. you try to value the things that are fleeting. like when my great aunt M was dying, I took the time and spent a lot of money renting cars just to go drive over to see her and spend time with her. why? because she’s a human being, because I didnt know her that well, but I wanted to support her and get to know her, and help her daughter in some way if I could. that was a great experience to me.

It would be terrible to say, oh sorry great aunt M, I cant bother to come see you as I’ve got to watch one of my harry potter movies. you know, one of those harry potter movies that I own that I could watch at any time at all.

and just as an aside. I dont know, I didnt grow up with a rich grandmother or anything. but there’s something sort of pitiful to me about grown adults with their own money willingly accepting an extravagant gift of someone paying their way for everything. I couldnt have afforded to go at all had I not been given the gift of the trip. but all of those other people, they just took that expensive gift and it seems funny to me. like, sure, we could all spend our money in different ways, but seriously, you’re a middle aged adult and you’re willing to let someone pay for you when you’re quite capable of paying for yourself?

my family might not have had that kind of money to throw around for a week long family reunion, but they all paid their own way. they didnt mooch off of anyone. if we saw each other, we did so on our own expense.

it just looked like mooching.

and like power and control.

it reminds me of K’s mom, M, and a conversation we had about the trip many months ago. she told me that if her mother, the grandmother who footed the bill for this whole trip, demanded that she do a naked headstand with Mickey Mouse, she’d do it and everyone else would have to.

it’s a very weird example to tell me, to be honest. seriously? because I’m an adult, and if someone offered me an all expense paid trip to anywhere, on condition that I do a naked headstand with anybody, I’d say, “Uhm, no thanks, not my cup of tea.” and I’d walk away and not take the trip. because I’m not so cheap as that.

but M’s mindset was that you do what grandma wants because grandma is paying for everything.

my mindset is I am an adult, I dont agree to terms and conditions like that at all. I like to know what the terms and conditions are before I make an agreement.

and I’m not so cheaply bought.