There are days when I can hone right in on my bi-weekly epiphany, and then there is today. From dealing with my husband’s crazy work-travel tear to graduation negotiations with our no-contact kid to realizing, this very morning, that while scurrying to get fifteen people ready for a late May cruise, one of them needed a new passport, it’s been a bit chaotic.
A light moment in the craze? Listening to my father’s detailed account of his very first full-body scan at the dermatologist.
Let’s work through this together, shall we?
My husband’s need to travel for work is not new to me, as he’s been doing so since I met him. In fact, it was on one of those “travel for work” weeks that allowed us to cross paths, sealing the most beautiful future. Managing our house solo during the week was the norm for the first five years of our marriage, which was actually quite perfect as it allowed me to hang onto my single-girl vibe a bit longer than most. Then, COVID turned all those traveling salesmen into virtual vendors, taking meetings at home and forcing folks like me to adjust to being married seven days a week.
It took a while to get used to my husband being home all the time; now, it’s taking me a while to adjust to his return to the roads. We rolled out of March with a fairly standard travel calendar: a trip scheduled here or there and typically for no more than three days. Then, those few trips were joined by a few more, and then, well, what’s one more packed suitcase and, long story short, I’ll be enjoying daily Girl Dinners from now until mid-May.
I don’t blame my husband (mostly) for being gone so much. I do blame our coming vacation and the panic that his co-workers tend to feel knowing they will be without his genius for an extended period. I should be flattered that he is so well-loved but the house does feel a bit too large without him banging around now that all the kids have left our nest.
As if all that travel weren’t enough to send our heads spinning, our eldest child’s long-awaited graduation from college has landed right smack in the middle of it.
Quick question for every college on the planet: Why the weekday ceremony!?!
What happened to the Saturday graduations of the last century? Those graduations made it easy for friends and family to slip in the night before the ceremony, stay for the celebration, and then make it back to reality well before Monday morning’s alarm clock sounded. While I know there are schools that still stick to weekend graduations, it seems that more and more are opting to plant them smack in the middle of the work week.
Our child will be graduating on a Friday morning in May, at 10:00 am. That leaves zero opportunity to sneak in day-of and nearly zero chance of sneaking out after the ceremony, as we live five hours away from the closet holding all of those caps and gowns. Even without my husband’s current travel schedule, it would be tricky. And, because navigating the odd date and time wasn’t enjoyable enough, we’ve entered the negotiation phase of who our baby adult does or does not want to see in the audience. Welcome to the world of raising a millennial, no contact chapter. It’s thrown an interesting wrench into the “How to Handle a Millennial Milestone” playbook.
Yes, the next six weeks have been scheduled out with a bulletin board so full of thumbtacks and red strings that Sherlock Holmes would weep with pride. In the center of that bulletin board? A giant photo of the cruise ship we will board as we finally wrap up May by heading back to Alaska. Cares? Left behind until our mid-June return. Until two days ago, my mantra was simply, “It can’t get here soon enough.”
Just kidding. I may need an extra week.
As I was starting check-ins for our portion of those fifteen people hopping on the ship, I realized that our son’s passport expires in November. New guidelines require that passports expire no sooner than six months from the end of international travel because WHY THE EFF IS THIS A RULE??? The travel agent in me was appalled that I had overlooked this, and the mom in me shit her pants a little. WHY THE EFF IS THIS A RULE???
Seriously. Why? Give me an expiration date that is the actual expiration date.
Theoretically, everything should be fine as the passport only expires a few weeks early. Theoretically. Still, the thought of waving to him from the ship’s upper decks as we leave him behind in Vancouver…I shouldn’t risk that, right? Right!?!
The irony? As a travel agent, passport details are one of the first things I collect from my international travelers. You would think that, in the process of booking fifteen people for the same international trip, I might have done a quick check on the documents that live just upstairs from my desk.
I did not.
An unwritten rule in the land of travel planning is that we eventually become our own worst clients. Level achieved.
Big thanks to my father for providing a giggle in the middle of this wonky week. He went to the dermatologist for what he thought was a follow-up on a spot he’d had removed several months ago. He was quite surprised, therefore, when instructed to don his birthday suit for a full-body scan. Surprise turned to mild panic as he wondered how he was going to get his shoes back on without his trusty shoehorn and, oh yeah, he was about to share all eighty-five of his years with a doctor who had previously only had access to that spot on his shoulder.
The minute-by-minute account reminded me of the one and only time my husband saw the dermatologist (at my insistence) after which he vowed never to return. As I told my husband and, now, my dad: Your body was forgotten the second the doctor left the room. My dad did make an appointment for next year, for which I’m very proud. My husband? Not so much. He still believes that refusing to be naked for five minutes today is so much better than finding out you have metastasized skin cancer decades from now.
A PSA that nobody asked for: Go get a skin scan.
At worst, you’ll have a great story to tell. At best, your future self will be thrilled that you reduced the damage.
And, I’m sorry if this comes as a shock, but there isn’t a doctor on the planet who really cares about what you look like naked.