As I sit and type this, we’ve already been home for almost three days. A combination of factors has contributed to the delay in compiling this final wrap-up blog entry. For one thing, the jetlag for travelling eastward around the planet—especially when travelling through the night, as we did—is particularly brutal on the body; it has taken a few days for me to find the right headspace. Upon arrival home, we found significantly more stress than we had anticipated. We had planned to come home to a thoroughly cleaned house, but those plans fell through, which we only learned of when we walked through the door. That left us with some instant housework that needed to be done. Sandy was not pleased at all. As if that wasn’t bad enough, our dryer packed in, so we had to fork out for a new one—not ideal when you’ve just spent a small fortune on a lengthy family holiday. Now that I’ve had time to process all of those issues, I can finally turn my attention to the task at hand.
Wrapping up this entire blog series is no easy feat. I thought about different ways to do this: summarising all the highlights, the best bits, the achievements, etc. I couldn’t possibly do justice to it all in a few brief paragraphs. However, something happened when we were at the airport in Orlando, awaiting our flight home, which I want to dwell on. As was expected, the process of returning home was stressful. Between tidying the house, packing the last bits into the car, getting to the airport, returning the vehicle, shifting our substantial collection of checked and carry-on bags, and checking in, we accumulated more collective stress in a brief few hours than we did during some of our most trying days over the past month. And then we found a bit of space in the centre of the terminal building to all sit and take a breather.
We were fortunate enough to have plenty of time on our hands, having arrived at the airport four hours ahead of our scheduled departure. This allowed everyone to climb down from the excitement and to find a bit of peace.
After a while, everyone was in a relaxed mood, our noses down into our mobile phones and tablets. Then something happened. There was no trigger; it just happened naturally.
I was recounting in my mind some of the more memorable moments from the holiday. The buying of Joey’s ‘stick’ in Epic Universe; Sandy finding her nirvana with the Toothless meet and greet; Jae licking the butterbeer froth from her top lip each time. But then, we all looked up and started chatting and joking with each other. All four of us engaged in the conversation. At that moment, some of the significant milestones from the past month were going through my mind. Through Jae’s blog entry, I saw a new side to her. More than that, her powerful words left a permanent mark on me, and I made a genuine attempt to ‘see’ her more. Despite the few meltdowns, Joey was much easier to manage compared to the previous time we were here. Partly, this was because he has matured, but also Sandy and I have learned to find the middle ground more frequently, finding ourselves on the same page more often.
Sandy was reflecting on the holiday, saying just how proud she was of the kids. Joey was praised for learning to tolerate difficult situations. Jae got kudos for being so mature, jumping in whenever the family needed it the most. Even I, according to Sandy, wasn’t as bad as I can sometimes be. I paraphrased what Sandy was saying, turning the kids as I spoke: “Joey, you’re fantastic; Jae, you’re fantastic; Dad, you’re not entirely bad after all.” This brought us all to fits of laughter. That was it: that was the moment. If I could, I would have captured that brief instant in time and bottled it. It was proof that we are a coherent family. Despite all the struggles, challenges, and adversities we face as a family day in and day out, we still have the collective capacity to come together as a cohesive unit. I didn’t voice it at the time, and perhaps I was a little emotional now that the holiday was truly over, but I felt so incredibly proud of my family in that moment. The hurdles and difficulties: that’s all part of life. The moments when we come together and can laugh at and with each other: those are the moments that make life worth living. So long as we can generate those moments—even if they are not always as frequent as we’d like—then I can feel successful as a parent and a husband, and I can live my life with a clear conscience.
The future is always an uncertain place for us as a family. We’ve had to learn to live with those uncertainties, however disconcerting they are. Jae is in her final year of education and may be heading to Australia for a gap year soon. It’s only a matter of time before we find a more permanent solution for Joey through a guided living arrangement. Whatever the future brings, we may never again experience a holiday quite like this one.
The turmoil and tribulations? Those are the things that make us unique. I wouldn’t change them for the world, because then we wouldn’t be us anymore.