Amanda Carrasco

My life has always had its ups and downs, twists and turns and unexpected surprises. My vacation was no different.

I had been dreaming of taking my kids to sunny California and making some great memories of smiling faces, meeting Mickey and serious family bonding time. I thought of all the wonderful happy pictures I would post on facebook that my friends could oh and ah over. I would beam with every “like.”

Nothing ever seems to go as I had planned. I question if there even exists a picture perfect vacation. I have serious doubts that I will ever get one if they do but I’m learning to be ok with that. I don’t think I would do perfect very well! Real life is messy. People make mistakes and they hurt each other. Rain happens, puke happens, pee’d beds happen and mom’s getting sick happen (just to name a few of the smaller difficulties).

Half way through our trip we hit a major wrinkle in terms of the unexpected and it threw me for a loop for most of the night and start of the next morning. I realized though, that the only thing I could control was my reaction. What happened had the potential to ruin the vacation entirely or I could suck it up, recalibrate and make the best of it.

I do not have the memories I had hoped for, but I do have memories of how we made the best of the situation we were in. Life is not fair. It is never going to be fair. If it were fair we would all be going to hell because that’s what we deserve.

I am not going to look at postcards anymore, nor desire to have those experiences. I want to view my life as an adventure. So much like a rollercoaster it’s not even funny, but as much as I HATE rollercoasters (except space mountain) I am learning to lean with the turns and roll with the ups and downs.

I thought about editing what pictures I posted or how I talked about my vacation but here’s what I am going to do. I am going to be real. I am going to be honest. The weather sucked, it was hard and I am sure I need antibiotics. But I will also be real about the good memories – my kids faces on their favorites rides and meeting their favorites characters. Playing on xbox with my son to get away from the rain at Legoland. My daughters getting flowers from the yellow night at Medieval times.

I know other people have had hard vacations too. Probably more than people that have had good ones.

We just need more real people and less postcards.