I need this vacation. I guess we all do. Time away from our regular life can only a good thing.
I take trips, but none are for pleasure. For many years, too many to bear, I traveled for family matters. It was, ultimately, a waste of resources, time, money, heart. I am glad I did all of that, even though everything still fell apart and our family is as fractured as it ever was. I do not regret a moment of it, but it would have been nice if my mother had come to some place in her life where she could admit to the kind of parent she was and allow her children to have some kind of resolution for what they, we, I, experienced at her hands. Oh, well, you cannot have everything, no matter how strong your desire. The sad part of all of the sad parts is that there is probably scant chance that there will ever be any closeness between us. Just bloody sad.
The other traveling that I do is to help with workshops. They are pretty darn nice and they help to refresh me on occasion and get me out of town. I am not so successful in my personal life lately and simple being in a different geography, even if it is close, is very nice. We do anywhere from two to ten of these things each year. My favorites are the three-day ones, with the week-long ones eventually feeling like work, which if that is what I wanted, I could have easily just stayed home.
But, this actual vacation trip, in less than two months now, is just what the doctor ordered. And, medically speaking, doctor is a good word to use.
You see, one of my best friends is dying. She is not doing well at all in the context of her illness and has come to the understanding that she will not be here with us, all of the people who love her so much, for very much longer. She just embarked on another course of treatment. Her choice, but so distressing to watch her become more and more debilitated from all of this.
When someone you love is leaving you in this permanent way, it is not about you, it is about that person, but the truth is that it really is about us, too. She gets to do whatever she likes for her treatment. We support her. We help facilitate whatever she wants. Unless some miracle happens, we also get to lose her.
I know this sounds lame and selfish. I do not care. I want her to live, of course, but I am also invested in how she lives. Yeah, yeah, all her choices, but I still get to want what I want, as well. One of the things that she and her husband intended to do was to spend most of their time traveling, seeing every part of the world that they could reach and afford. Their plan was to rarely be home. And, then she got sick, and it was hopeful in the beginning, and the dreams of travel never were diminished. She was going to get well and they were going to become our own, personal, little globetrotters, who would send us e-mails and postcards and show us long, boring and absolutely delicious photo and film records of their adventures.
Except that she never got better. There have been days when she felt good enough to leave the house, often driving herself to somewhere pleasant where she could sit and relax, without any of us hovering around her. I think that that aspect of privacy, those tiny opportunities to get away from everything and everyone were her refuge, the thing that allowed her to be here and fight for her life.
Now she rarely allows anyone to visit her. She remains in telephone contact with one of us, but that is it. She continues with painful and horrible treatments that sap her strength and make her feel even more ill. Her choice.
This, all of this is what she chooses to do, but I wish that she would not. Her diagnosis was nearly two years ago. I am sure that if she had not opted for aggressive treatment that she would not have lived this long. But, the time that she did have could have been spent going on some of those trips, or simply doing fun things with her husband. She could have had excellent health and pain management and have had it follow her anyplace in the world that she went. Now it is too late. She is frail and in nearly constant pain that drugs can barely touch. She rarely leaves her bed and never leaves the house except for more doctors and more hospitals and more treatment.
How can this be a good thing? Her choice, but I do not understand it, no, I am unable to understand, what I cannot do is to accept it. Not in my heart.
That is why I am taking this trip. I am using money that was difficult to save and should be used to help me move on and have another life circumstance. Instead, I am using it on a trip, one that I have wanted to take for more than thirty years.
I never took it because there were always other things that needed being done. It was a foolish notion and I had to be grown-up, adult about where my resources went, you know, having the right priorities. I never resented not going, but the desire never left me, even though I pushed it someplace where I never had to think about it.
Two things happened to change my mind. The first is that I want to do some things just because I want them that much. I always made sacrifices and did without just because it was the right thing that someone else wanted me to do. I am not even certain that taking this trip is the right thing for me in this moment. Another thing about which I do not care.
The second thing is that our daughter asked her father for a favor and he turned her down with the exact excuse that he has always used whenever someone wanted or needed some thing or to do some thing that he did not think was important. Frankly, unless it involved him, it was never important. And, I was thinking about this and the few vacations that we took as a family were all paid for by me. I am so sorry, I have so much regret that I did not take us more places and do more things. Damn. I offered to do the favor for our daughter, but she declined, refusing to allow me to use my resources to help. I am not happy about this, but it is her choice and she has found another way to make her needs happen. Bless her.
I just want my choices to be better now. This trip is already causing problems here, but too fucking bad. My plans are to save whatever I can and then travel. Then, save some more and travel, and keep doing that until I have nothing to save and am too decrepit to make it around on my own.
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