I Think COVID Fatigue Stole My Cinco de Mayo Mojo

Cinco de Mayo always gave us an excuse to act like college kids. Imagine a bunch of forty-year-olds running around in bathing suits and giant sombreros, posing for pictures with inflatable, human-size Corona bottles, licking salt and sucking lime wedges to soothe the tequila sting right before jumping into the pool. My girlfriends and I would spend the few weeks prior scouring Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Etsy for THE Perfect Cinco De Mayo Adorable Tank Top. My husband and his friends would spend the same weeks growing out ridiculously unattractive mustaches. You'd never guess based on these descriptions that we are mostly all incredibly respectable, often quite Type A, never-late-on-a-mortgage-payment, sometimes even a little boring grown ups. Which is probably why we love throwing these parties: they let all of us loosen up and have a good time with each other. (The tacos are a bonus.)

I spent Cinco De Mayo of 2020 moping. I longed for my backyard to be filled with tipsy friends and loud music and itchy, stick-on, dollar store mustaches that would always inevitably get gross and sweaty and fall off. 

"When this is all over, I'm going to throw The Biggest Damn Cinco De Mayo party EVER!" I declared. "I'm going to throw a July 4th party too! And St. Patrick's Day! What about Easter?!? Can I throw a loud Easter party? And I was thinking of a luau...!"

I swear, I am not exaggerating. That might have even been a direct quote.

That's how I got through COVID Cinco: planning all the parties I was going to throw in 2021.

Yet here we are. There are no stacks of tacky sombreros or liters of tequila sitting in the pantry waiting for the party guests. There are no five-pound bags of shredded cheese in my fridge. There are no plans being brainstormed to convince the local grocery store manager that we must have the Corona store decorations with the face cut outs for a cultural project for our schools (yes, those stories have worked every single time).  And I realized recently that there is also no desire for this party. 

I can't figure out why. COVID is definitely not "all over," but things--and life--are definitely more normal. We have found a way to live within this new (hopefully still temporary) normal. I don't have a reason other than: I just don't feel like it. 

I am realizing that I just don't feel like doing a lot of things lately. Some of it is life, its hectic-ness, the end of the school year. Some of it (I admit this begrudgingly) are these new hormones that seem to be insisting on warning me that my 50s are approaching. But I think that some of it is the mental and emotional fatigue of this past year...the sensation that I am still getting my bearings after these last 14 months.

I just don't always feel the lightness and frivolity of my pre-Covid self.

And I think that I'm going to give myself permission to be okay with that for now.

So this year, I'm going to dig out my perfectly adorable Cinco de Mayo tank top circa 2019, have a margarita (or a few) with some friends, and possibly plan The Biggest Damn Cinco De Mayo Party EVER for another year. Maybe it will even be next year. Don't worry. I'll give y'all enough notice to order your shirts and grow out your mustaches. 

The travel blog returns: where we were supposed to be today

We were supposed to be on a plane right now, heading to Kauai. We had planned it and saved up for it for almost 2 years, but then the bizarre situation that is our world these days stepped in. It sucks. A lot of things suck right now, but I am not so delusional or spoiled that I don't understand that my Hawaiian getaway is not nearly even close to high up on the list of Sucky Things Happening In The World Right Now.

But even though we are incredibly grateful that we have not lost loved ones, jobs, or our minds (although that last one really depended on the day), we are still, admittedly, incredibly sick and tired of being cooped up and having our lives put on hold. (Have you seen those pandemic memes about the introvert friends needing to check on their extrovert friends because they are most certainly, absolutely not okay? Yeah, that's us.) We, as a family, are rarely home. We rarely sit still. We are always out and doing, and when we are not, we are planning the out and the doing. So when our big trip to paradise had to be postponed another year (no, I am not even contemplating the possibility of 2021 being as fucked up as 2020), we sat down and said "Okay, so what can we do instead?" 

We are lucky that when COVID pretty much shut down every kind of travel option, we were able to resort back to our usual mode of summer adventure: our RV. We usually spend at least a year planning and organizing our summer road trips...from the stops to the activities to the daily mileage. This time, we turned to the kids immediately after canceling our flight to Kauai and asked "If we can't go to Hawaii this summer, what would make a good runner up?" Luckily, this was one of those rare times when all four of us had the same response: Outer Banks, NC...where our oldest learned what the word "bliss" meant many moons ago. So in an unprecedented and very non-type-A-personality move, we threw together a 5-week road trip with the only non-negotiable being a very long stay at our favorite beach campground in Outer Banks.

We loaded up and headed out yesterday, driving about 8 hours from South Florida to a little campground in Georgia where we just spent the night. Today, we were supposed to stop to sleep at South of the Border, the infamously tacky and frighteningly similar-to-a-cheap-horror-movie-set campground where we stayed a couple of years ago.  But after making really good time and only driving about 5 hours, we all agreed we'd stay on the road a few more hours.

But first, the boys humored me by recreating some cheesy pics from our last stop there: 

TODAY...

  

...and THEN

Ben
TODAY...

...& THEN

Kai
TODAY...

...& THEN

We'll be staying somewhere in North Carolina tonight and head out tomorrow to Cedar Island, where we will kill time in a very isolated and oppressively hot beach area while we wait to get on the ferry to the Outer Banks early the next day.

Since I woke up this morning, I have been thinking about where we were "supposed" to be today. After all, the date June 10, 2020 had been figuratively circled on my calendar for more than a year. I even had one of those silly vacation countdown apps on my phone. It had a little Hawaiian-themed suitcase graphic on it. I am incredibly aware of how lucky we are...driving to spend all these days in our second favorite place in the world, and then moving on to spend more weeks discovering new places and revisiting old faves. So even though I was "supposed to be" on a plane right now, I am pretty damn happy and grateful that I am where I am, with my three favorite people around me, healthy and well.  And maybe...just maybe...on the road all together in our beloved RV is where we were "supposed to be" today all along. 

Graduating during the pandemic: this is not the way it was supposed to end

On the first day of kindergarten, Ben walked up to his teacher, unprompted, stuck out his hand, looked up, and announced, "Hi, I'm Ben. It's nice to meet you."

When he was about 3 or 4, he asked me, "Mommy, if I'm holding your hand when you die and go to heaven, will I be able to go with you?"

He's always been this intense, special, old soul: wise beyond his years, sensitive, headstrong, outspoken. So bright, it's scary. The kind of kid who would question everyone around him all the time---his teachers, his friends, his parents--not out of disrespect, but simply because he was probably seeing some loophole in their rules or suggestions that did not make sense to him, and he, quite frankly, just wanted to know why... We have spent years trying to teach him how to keep that self-confidence and sharpness, but not step on the toes of those in authority (too much). There have probably been an equal number of days in our parenting lives in which we have had to say "Damn it, you're right," and "Damn it, 'cause I say so." So often, he is the one calling us out, making us look at a situation in a different way, bringing us together as a family in the midst of an argument or a disagreement or a moment of discipline. Sometimes when he is driving me craziest, I have to laugh and shake my head and remind myself: "Mannnnn, this kid could rule the world..." 

He and I are so alike, it's startling. There are countless times when we notice the same exact detail about something, make the same comment, understand each other's thinking in a way no one else can. How often does Hubby say "You two are exactly the same person." And so, we have a bond that's unique and comforting. But when we clash...you can almost see the energy surging around us. I imagine we must look like two fighters literally dropping the gloves and coming at each other, or those bighorn rams you see butting each other on the heads on the nature channels...but we come at each other with our words, usually powerful, often sarcastic, and always indignant. It scares me, sometimes, how alike we are, how connected I feel to him, but the true beauty of it is when we come out of it on the other side: the battles usually end up bringing us closer. 

And now he's about to finish up his elementary and middle school years. He is "graduating" from 8th grade and crossing over to being a High Schooler. (How in the hell did I become the mom of a high schooler?!?) He has spent the last 9 years at the same school (the same school where Hubby and I teach). From that kindergarten first day when he pretended to be all grown up meeting his teacher to this final year, he has excelled. (Did I mention that when he earned his first B on a report card in 3rd grade, he literally threw himself on the floor of our kitchen crying? When we tried consoling him, he sobbed: "Well, maybe it's good enough for you, but it's not for me!" Luckily, he's loosened up a bit through the years...) He's made every honor roll and been inducted into every honor society. He's won competitions in his STEM classes. He's missed (maybe) one or two homework assignments the entire time. This year, he took the award for Top Algebra Student (I can't even add tip to a restaurant check, so this is the one area in which we are absolutely nothing alike). But the ending of these years is not only special because of his academic achievements. He's made friends. Good, tight, special friends. He's played football. He was on the jump rope team. He built robots and made award-winning paper-mache masks. It's been a really, really good 9 years. 

And now he's closing this chapter of his life and is the only one leaving the area's school to go to his neighborhood high school. He's excited. ("I want to do ALL the activities!" he whispered to me at the high school's open house.) He's ready. We all are. This school will open a whole new world for him---one that includes not only academics, but sports and socializing and learning who he is in isolation of all those kids he's literally grown up around. 

But--it wasn't supposed to end like this.

Like so many other parents, students, and teachers, we are heartbroken by how this pandemic has affected our school lives.

He spent the first three semesters of this school year busting his butt to complete not one, but two, online high school classes so he could "play" in phys ed the last semester with his best friends. The day the last semester was supposed to start, we were already in quarantine. So here's this kid---my kid---who made the responsible choice for himself: "I won't take phys ed on my last year with my buddies, even though I really want to, because I should get high school stuff out of the way, but I'll make sure I get it all done early so I can have those last 9 weeks to hang out and enjoy myself..." and...nope. He was supposed to go on a graduation cruise with his best friend. There was a 3-day field trip he was especially excited about to the state colleges. Two trips to Orlando parks for the honor society kids and the graduating class. A graduating ceremony. He had already picked out his tuxedo (John Wick style, thank you very much) for his 8th grade prom.  

That's how it was supposed to happen. 

But as we know, nothing is as it's supposed to be these days. Nothing.

And so we have done like so many other families: we have made the best of a terrible situation with small socially distant gatherings with only his best friend and his grandparents...with car parades with posters and balloons and honking horns...with promises---oh, how we've made promises--of future trips and sleep-overs and beach days with his friends...all his friends...any of his friends....as many things as he wants to plan when this is "all over" (whatever that means). 

Of course, he has handled it all beautifully. Remember, he was born an old soul. Wise and sensitive and sharp. He understands he can't complain about a canceled field trip when there are people dying around the world. But somehow, that makes me hurt even more. Because--and I know I'm super biased here-- I feel like: Man, if there ever was a kid who deserved to go out with a bang, it's this one. My boy. 

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Congratulations, Ben.  Words cannot express how proud we are...not just of your school achievements, but even more so of the young man and amazing soul you are. We love you.