Quite soon after J’s suicide my life changed again. This time in a financial sense. Partly hard work and partly being in the right place at the right time. The irony being that suddenly I could have afforded for J to receive private treatment for his mental health. Would he have accepted it though?
I’ve always loved travelling. Now I found myself in the position to not only travel, but to do it in style. So, over the past four years me and my sons have been on some lovely trips and stayed in some beautiful locations. In April, for the anniversary of J’s death, we went to the Maldives. I don’t think a day goes by without me appreciating the fact that I’m in a position to do this.
So there we were in the Maldives. On a tiny island with a reef full of turtles, sharks (the friendly kind) and colourful fish. And my two teenage sons were on their phones. A lot.
Don’t get me wrong, they loved being there and enjoyed snorkelling a few times and splashing around in the pool. And definitely eating, they really enjoyed that part. For me it was sheer bliss to go snorkelling twice a day and then read my book. But for them, being on their phones was a bigger draw.
We argued about it, I told them off for wasting their ‘once in a lifetime’ holiday. They would stop for a bit and trudge to the beach with me. That’s the time we saw turtles, and they were both glad they went. I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to make the most of every second in that paradise.
When we got home, I complained to my friend Neil about it. I was frustrated. I had spent a small fortune on this holiday, but they still wanted to be on their phones?! “Of course they did,” he replied. I did a double-take: “What?!”
“You took them on your perfect holiday.” He continued. “They’re teens. They don’t want peace and quiet, snorkelling and watching sunsets.* You need to take them on their perfect holiday.”
And this is how I came to find myself on a road-trip to a Centerparcs in France. It turns out I was terrible at it. Everything needed to be planned meticulously and booked in advance. I’m more of the ‘wait and see what it’s like first’ kind of person.
So, we failed to hire bicycles (“all reserved”) and ended up averaging 14,000 steps a day getting around the site. I booked the boys into activities for toddlers (I thought it was over 1.2m not up to 1.2m. Clearly my French isn’t as good as I thought it was). My friend Neil, who came with us, split his head open on the ‘Savage River’ in the water park. The receptionist at A&E said when she saw him: “Did you have a boo-boo?” I don’t know why I find that so funny. My youngest son got hit on his head in the first five minutes of paint-balling. He walked off trying to hide his tears from everyone.
The food was terrible, and overpriced. The cabin was sweltering hot, without air-con or even a fan. The sauna at the cabin – a wooden Skandi-style sauna in the pictures – looked like a plastic shower room in an assisted living facility for the elderly. There was a rat running around the edges of the water park.
And yet when we got home, my post-holiday blues were way worse than after the Maldives. Despite how out of my comfort zone I felt at Centerparcs, we just had so much fun. Neil made everything silly and funny, and in the evening he and I could have a glass of cold beer and laugh about the mishaps of the day.
I hadn’t realised how tiring it has been doing all the ‘adulting’ by myself. Booking travel, accommodation, activities, meals. Sorting out clothes, packing, ensuring we get places on time. First aid kits, insect repellant, cables, adaptors.
I’m not ungrateful, far from it. I know how unbelievably lucky I am to be in a position to do all of this. It was just so lovely to have another adult with me to share some of this with. Even if it was to just say: “Stop worrying about everything, it will be fine.” I needed to hear that.
When we travelled with J, to Greece and the occasional weekend away, the lead up to the trip would always be terrible. He would become agitated and stressed. The night before we went to Greece he stayed up all night, got drunk and had an argument with his mum. He didn’t pack until minutes before our departure. “I’m not coming, go without me!” Right up until the last minute, I wasn’t sure he would make the trip.
On a weekend away with the kids, he had a meltdown on the first night. I can’t even remember what it was about. I think the boys (who would have been around 8 and 10 at the time) were too impatient when he was trying to read out the rules to a board game. He blew up and stormed out. I had no idea where he went or when he would be coming back. He returned in the middle of the night, after we were all in bed.
On my first day at Centerparcs I kept grumbling under my breath: “This is my idea of hell.” By the end of it, I didn’t want to leave. Not because my impression of Centerparcs had changed**, but because the boys loved it so much. It turns out, it is all about the memories rather than the fancy locations. In the past four years I’ve been focused on choosing lovely places to travel to. And then concentrated on being the responsible adult – making sure we arrive, have somewhere to stay, have the right clothes with us. I think all this time I may have been forgetting one key ingredient to make it truly memorable: FUN.
* They both assure me they did enjoy some of those things…
** Despite eventually having fun, I’m not sure I will ever want to return…
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