We were planning on taking a road trip to Colorado next month, but for some reason I could not bring myself to sit down and start planning the trip, and every time C and I tried to talk about it, it turned into a big meltdown session about everything that I am feeling frustrated about. Somehow the trip had become a metaphor for my life--a rut I could neither face nor get out of. Finally yesterday morning I called C and instructed him to buy plane tickets. It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders...now I could start figuring out what little things we need to do, buy, pack, take care of, before we go.
And now we can spend more time while we're there doing what we want to do and enjoying ourselves, and a lot less time driving across the mind-numbing dead zone known as the heartland of our country (sorry everyone from New Hampshire to Eastern Colorado, but if I'm gonna take a road trip, this is what I really want to see, not cornfields or billboards). My latest meltdown was about how our kids are NEVER going to be able to go ANYWHERE cool because we live at the farthest far corner or nowhere (again, no offense to anyone who lives in, like, the eastern 2/3 of the country).
Anyhoo, I have not solved that problem, except that we'll get to see a bit more cool stuff on our shortened but extended trip, and I have not solved any of my other intractable problems that cause me to press my lips together in a lockjaw-esque death clamp while I drive around (in the rain), at the edge of the middle of nowhere...still entrenched in the life rut, but maybe the release from the vacation rut will provide some relief.
Southern Utah WAS amazing, but we saw a whole lot of nothing while road-tripping as well, so I know what you mean. Good choice to fly...you'll spend more time at your destination. I've never actually driven through the heartland, so maybe it'd be a novelty for about ten minutes? lol I'll probably find out, because next year we're planning to visit my sister in Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteFrom a fellow prisoner of the Northeastern Megalopolis:
ReplyDeleteAmen! I can tolerate a fair bit of cornfields, even enjoy them, if I haven't been traumatized by a day and a half of Boston-Chicago construction, commuters and convoys. Like you, I imagine, I've tried every effing route and they all suck in some measure. Flying mitigates most of them. Great idea.
OT: almost called you yesterday to ask whether I am mental. May do so today.
Am I allowed to say that I am relieved FOR you. The road trip idea was extraordinarily brave & while I think you are quite a brave person, traveling by air to CO with the three boys should just be challenge enough.
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