Vacation

We just got back from vacation today.  We spent a week on Hilton Head Island.  Yes, you read that right...the woman who hates water spent a week on the beach and in the pool.  Yes, I swam.  Yes, I allowed my children to do so.  I will admit that I had a much better time at the beginning of the week when Charlie freaked every time we tried to go into the ocean (or the river, as she kept insisting on calling it) or into the pool.  By the end of the week she was a pro and I accumulated no less than 5 additional gray hairs.

Further exacerbating my dis-inclination towards water was the fact that something fucked up started to go on with my ears.  At first it just felt like they had water in them.  Then it progressed to sharp pains.  It sucked.  Swimmer's ear, maybe?  Who the fuck knows.  It was just awful and more ammunition in my fight against the dark force that is recreational swimming.  My husband got me some drops that helped somewhat, but not until I missed spending time with a friend who had dropped by on her way to Myrtle Beach with her boys.  AGAIN...SEE?  Another reason why water is the devil!

Someone (actually, a couple of someones...) had suggested a decongestant.  That sounded like a mighty fine idea until I remembered that most decongestants make me want to crawl out of my skin.  I would make a poor meth addict, I think.  Taking a decongestant and then being confined 14 hours to a minivan with my children, husband, sister, and brother in law?  When taking a decongestant makes me want to scratch my insides out from the imaginary crank bugs that I swear to God are crawling on my arteries?  No thanks.  I'll suck it up, buttercup. Going through the mountains was fun, as well as trying to hear anyone speak below the decibel level of a freight train.

The ear situation aside, it was quite fun.  This was actually our first significant vacation with all of the children.   Charles and I had gone down last year but left the kids, much to Elizabeth's chagrin.  Tack on another three months of therapy there... The kids did great on the ride down...not so much on the ride back but it turns out Charlie's eczema flared up in her butt crack so I imagine that was not so fun for her, poor thing.  We swam, we shopped, Elizabeth got to zip-line due to my brother in law and sister sitting through a time share presentation.  The little girls built (and destroyed) many a sand castle with me and I got more sun (and sand in my vagina) than I should.  We will definitely be returning again, with ear drops this time!

Five

It is hard to believe sometimes that it has been five years.

Five years since my world was turned upside down.

Five years since I learned things I never wanted to know.

Five years.  Half a decade. Kindergarden age.  The Wood anniversary. 

It has not gotten easier.  I dread the days leading up to July 2 like no other.  No matter how much time passes, I don't think that it will ever get to the point where I can work that day.  Where I can think of the events of that day without a panic attack.

Where I wonder how the hell I carried on and functioned and why the world did not stop when mine was falling apart.

Five years.  Both so short, and yet so long.

RIP and happy birthday, Gabe.  Mama misses you every day.  And Mama will never allow you to be forgotten.