Some (Tiny) Thoughts On Just F***ing Going For It

Vacation anxiety, bad ski suits, and shedding old skins for new ones.

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Last week was my daughter’s winter break, and thanks to my friend Jen who made the initial suggestion, we rented a house and took our kids skiing in Vermont. Neither my husband nor my daughter had ever been on skis before. I skied a lot in high school/college but stopped when the crazy cost became foolish for someone on a magazine assistant’s salary.

A family trip like this is going to be an adventure, I thought. New skills and experiences…fresh air! Just think of all the memories we’ll be creating for Raf! This was the mantra I began telling myself on loop. But in truth, from the moment I said yes, the vacation anxiety train came—toot-toot!—cruising into the station. All the manic/absurd/insane worries about expectations, having the “time of our lives”—not just mine…ours. Not to mention doing something I hadn’t done in a lifetime of years…a real sport. Something that required technical outfits and gear and lessons and rentals and frequent snacks and…plans. Plans, I will tell you, I wanted soooo much to get right but, y’know, probably wouldn’t because on top of my inner extremely convincing Daria Morgendorffer, I would be planning in concert with two moms whom I love very much and look to for so much of my parenting advice. Moms who would definitely not wait until the last minute on anything, getting everything right—down to the warmest, non-itchy socks—because they knew what they were doing and, let’s face it, I really did not. 

But there was something more to this particular emotional spiral than just the mounting logistics and my nagging fears as a person masquerading as a mom…and it took a few weeks to realize what I was really freaking out about.