We Went to the Beach.

A few days ago, we got back from a week long family trip to the beach. After driving 10 hours, I sat on the couch and I went through all of the photos I took that week. As I was deciding which photos I wanted to share with my friends and family, as one does after a fun and exciting trip, I found so many beautiful shots. I went to go post a handful of them on social media, and I was stopped in my tracks when it came time to caption the post. Typically, I’d write something along the lines of “we had the best time at the beach!” or “best week ever!” But this time, I couldn’t say that. It was not the best week ever, and we (I) did not have the best time at the beach. Harsh? Yeah, maybe. But true.

My kids (and family) are creatures of habit. We like routine. We simply do better when things are mapped out for us and we know what to expect. Sure, that can be boring sometimes, but I’ve seen my kids thrive like this and spiral when they don’t have it, so we stick to it for the most part. Knowing that about ourselves, entering an unstructured week in a house we have never stayed in, we anticipate a little bit of chaos. But this year, whew! My kids were off the rails. It took them 3 full days just to adjust to being on vacation, then the exhaustion and overstimulation set in, and by the time they finally started to act like themselves again it was time to start packing up.

The entire week was an emotional rollercoaster. Manners? It’s like they never heard the word. Meltdowns? Not just daily, hourly. The crying, the whining, the complaining. Between navigating car sickness (twice) from my 3 year old and throwing my back out on the last day, I am not sure I said more than two direct sentences to my husband that entire week that was not about delegating a task related to our children.

Sure, there were moments of peace. I can still see my kids squealing as they jumped over the waves. They were brief, but these little snippets helped me remember why we came in the first place. However, I’d be lying if I said there were more than a handful of those moments.

I’m going to go back to what I feel like I always end up landing on. The pressure. This time it’s the unspoken pressure to create and have the perfect family vacation. As parents, we pack the bags, plan the meals, manage the emotions, and in addition to all that we are expected to keep a smile on our face and at the end post something glowing and positive.

If you take one thing away here, let it be this. Not every vacation is restful. Not every mom comes back recharged. If you’re like me, you come back even more exhausted than when you left. Vacation is hard. Acknowledging that doesn’t mean you are not grateful for your experience. It just means you’re human.

I’ve had multiple people ask me how our trip was. My honest response? “It was fine,” followed by a deep exhale and a shrug. Most have been surprised by that. Some are even uncomfortable. Like there’s something wrong with saying anything other than “It was SO amazing!”

But I’m done pretending.

It’s ok to tell the truth. I don’t understand why we don’t do this more often. You see all of the picture perfect vacation posts on social media, or talk to your friends who say they had the best time, and you think to yourself “Wow! They had the most perfect trip. Why wasn’t my trip that perfect?” Then you start doubting yourself, your parenting, and everything else. When in reality, those people did not have the perfect trip. Find me someone with two or more small children who claim to have had a perfect vacation, you can’t.

So, when your captioning your beautiful vacation photos for your friends and family to see, it is ok if all you have to say is “we went to the beach.”