Not Everything Is Fun

A life lesson brought to you by travel. (From the woman who has made travel her life.)

Not everything is fun. I learned this over and over again during my travels this summer. It’s not like I didn’t know this but the heat of a reminder leaves a red welt. Or, as in my case, a bum toe. I’ll get to this part of the story in a minute.

First, I want to say that the fact not everything is a great experience, that not everything always goes according to plan, especially during our travels, can be one of life’s greatest teachers. After all, we can learn a lot from experiencing things we don’t like. This was how I approached my cruise-ship holiday a few weeks ago: like an invaluable learning experience. (That and an occasion to take a few nice family photos and selfies.)

(Genoa, Italy Day 2)

The instant I looked down from the window of our early morning flight to Nice and saw the monstrous vessel floating like an iceberg just off the port of Cannes I knew boarding that ship for a week was not what I wanted to do. This did not come as a huge shock. I kind of already knew this but in the name of Trying Something New, my husband and I decided to explore this kind of vacation in the hopes it would be an answer to relieving ourselves of all the logistics and planning. (Since planning trips is what I do for a living, I don’t always want to do it for my own vacation). We figured a cruise would be low-stress with little-to-no decision-making and a good experience for Luke with all the kids activities.

Once we’d settled into our cabin, we toured the boat. We took him up to the kids club and he mustered the courage to go in for a whopping three minutes. He came straight back out and said it was too loud. We didn’t blame him. And so it went. Ben and I had to laugh our childcare plan had backfired. “Oh well,” I shrugged. “I’m not the one steering this ship.” Needless to say we made very good use of the champagne bar that was included in our drinks package.

It wasn’t until the last day as we were leaving Barcelona’s busy port where helicopters covering the America’s Cup races swarmed overhead like mosquitoes, that Luke decided he wanted to make use of the waterpark on board the ship. Only he was too short to actually go down any of the slides. “Mummy, will you go for me?”

(Barcelona, Day 6)

He could have asked me to slaughter a thousand mucky pigs with my barehands and I would have said yes because it’s true — a mother will do anything for her son. So, naturally, I took my place in line. When it was my turn to go, the lifeguard informed me that I needed a bracelet.

“A bracelet?” To get a bracelet I had to sign a waiver.

“A waiver?” I said, laughing, looking at this silly little waterslide, comparing them to the waterslides of the huge waterparks of the US. The irony and absurdity struck me. We’d been floating around the Med on an eighteen-story floating city but they wanted me to sign a waiver for the slide. Fine. Waiver signed, bracelet donned, life signed away, I went back up the stairs, waved to Luke who was down below with Ben waiting for me then promptly stubbed my toe in a way that caused my big toenail to bend all the way back. Excruciating pain jolted through my whole body. Only it happened so fast that when I looked down through teary eyes, my toenail seemed fine. Perfectly in place. I figured I was over-reacting so I gathered my wits and went down the damn slide. (Yes, it’s because of instances like this and people like me that one might be put off going on a cruise ship and getting in the water.)

(Portovenere, Italy Day 3)

Fast forward four days (including an eight hour flight delay getting home) we’re back and my toenail still isn’t better. My surgeon husband tells me there’s nothing to be done. The toenail needs to be removed. “Can’t you just do it for me?” I ask, not wanting to go to the ER. (I mean, the man can deliver a baby if he has to, surely a toenail can’t be too tough a job.) He laughed. Honey, I can’t. We need to take you in.

And so, we picked Luke up after school — which by the way, was his very first day — and promptly drove to the hospital where I proceeded to have my toenail removed. While I was wincing in pain while being stuck with large needles to numb me, as my body buzzed with anesthesia, Ben entertained Luke by showing him the oximeter. They were putting the clip on their fingers and holding their breath to make the numbers change, laughing hysterically.

Toe bulging out of my Birks, wrapped up in proper Frankenstein fashion, we’re leaving the hospital. Luke runs past me as I hobble down the corridor hollering, “Woo-hoo! That was fuuuuuunnnn!”

That our cruise holiday adventure culminated with the removal of my toenail makes me laugh. Because, of course it did. That cruise didn’t like me as much as I didn’t like it. And, also, I bloody knew better. And, isn’t it funny how we don’t take photos of the gory bits. We naturally only want to keep the beautiful parts. I didn’t snap photos of the endless waiting in line to get on or off the ship or the breakfast buffet line I so loathed. (I did take photos of my toe without a nail but I will spare you those.) There were parts and moments of our trip I did enjoy. Like all the precious time we spent together as a family. Like sunsets. And waking up every day to the sound of the ship’s rudders whirring as we glided into a new port in a new place.

When Ben and I decided on the cruise with a “how bad can it be” attitude, I’d said how I wanted to see if there was a way I might redefine my definition of fun. Because so much of having and rearing a child is just not fun. But then again, it’s also very fun. After four years of this parenting thing, I thought maybe trying something I wouldn’t have thought was fun at any other given point in my life was potentially a good idea. And it was. If only to remind myself that it was indeed a bad idea. And to remind myself that even though I’m a mother now, I’m still me.

I think the main lesson here lies in the toenail removal operating room. To go out in search of fun is often the best way not to find it. But if you’re able to find fun in the lesser, more hideous moments of life — ding ding. That’s the ticket. Cruise ships can’t hold a candle to an oximeter. Can I get a ‘woo-hoo’ for that?

Ten tips on how to have fun when it’s not fun while traveling:

1. Find the humour. Because it’s all funny. Comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. What’s awful, is, quite close to being fantastically funny. Forever. (It’ll make a great story one day when it stops being awful.)

2. Make it up. Engage your imagination. Making up a game or creating stories about strangers…very entertaining. Children are masters of this.

3. Reach outside of yourself. Get out of your own head and strike up a conversation with someone nearby. The saying is true: you never know who you might meet.

4. Accept the things you cannot change. This, of course, is a daily quest for most of us. But during travel hassles, this is key to staying calm and level-headed.

5. Plan for hiccups. Know that there will be challenges. War-game it and think about what you would do. What would you do if your 2 hour flight was diverted and you had a 5 hour delay, making it a 9 hour journey instead of a 4 hour journey? You might need to pack that extra battery charger for your iPad to keep binging on your shows.

6. Remember you’re not stuck. You can always just go home I briefly considered booking us flights from Rome back to London but then decided it would be better to just stick it out. Once we got to Palma, I looked at flights again but again, decided to stick it out.

7. Make an alternative plan. Having a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C will ease your mind.

8. Stay open and positive-minded. Negativity breeds negativity and positivity breeds positivity. You get to choose your own rabbit hole.

9. Change the vibe by changing what you’re doing. Be spontaneous in whatever way accessible to you in the moment. Maybe it’s just going to get a coffee or a croissant. Maybe it’s going to buy a magazine or going for a walk. Jump up and down a few times. Slough off the sad vibes and bring on the happy ones.

10. Remember why you’re traveling in the first place. Oftentimes we travel to escape, in an effort to perhaps fuel a secret fantasy that someone somewhere else is living a better life and we’re going to go experience that life for ourselves. But actually, when we get out into the world, it can be a real eye opener to all the wonderful things we have at home. Recognise that feeling of wanting to go home and cherish it. Be grateful for it. And if you don’t feel that way about home, perhaps it’s time for a change. Use travel, with all its adversities as an opportunity for instigating that change.

And with that, I leave you with the cheesiest family photo we’ve ever taken. (Look at the cruise ship in the background… it kills me. But God, Luke’s face!)