Spring Break . . . This Too Shall Pass

There is a particular saying which I tend to remind myself of whenever the shit is hitting the fan.  Or whenever I’m in a bad situation.  Whether I’m sitting in the dentist’s chair about to have a root canal procedure or whether I’m in my boss’s office getting reamed, or whether I’m on an airplane cruising at 30 thousand feet and we hit a patch of nasty turbulence.  If I’m in a bad spot I simply like to remind myself that “This Too Shall Pass.”

Sure it’s nothing more than a silly saying, and at the end of the day it certainly doesn’t end whatever misery I’m going through at that particularly time, but for whatever reason I am able to calm myself down, even just slightly, by reminding myself that “This Too Shall Pass.”  I guess it’s simply my way of taking a deep breath and relaxing the nerves for a couple seconds.

But it does work, and because it seems to work I don’t take it lightly.  I don’t overuse it.  It’s almost like I don’t want to waste the power of the saying.  I don’t walk around telling myself that “This Too Shall Pass” when I can’t find the TV remote control, or when I realize that there’s a fresh box of Zebra Cakes, but no milk.  And I don’t yell out “This Too Shall Pass” when I put multiple serves into the net during a paddle match (though I have been known to yell something altogether different when that happens).  It’s a special saying which I save for specific occasions . . . . though I will admit to muttering “This Too Shall Pass” while watching one of my son’s Instructional League baseball games a few years ago . . . . but that was only after our shortstop fielded a ground ball and turned around and threw the ball to our center fielder . . . to this day no one has actually been able to explain that play to me . . . and I’ve never seen it duplicated.

But last week when I reminded myself that “This Too Shall Pass” while my family and I vacationed in sunny Florida, I began to wonder whether I was using this saying haphazardly or whether I was dealing with a situation that in fact justified the use.

Now I have made no secret of the fact that I’m somewhat puzzled over the whole spring break thing.  I’ve written about it at least a couple times here in this blog.  It seems to me that we all bolt out of town for spring break only to get to our destination and long to be home again.  We have taken all of our baggage (and I mean that literally and figuratively) and simply changed the scenery.  Kids still fight with one another.  Couples still argue.  No one is able to agree on a “family movie” to watch.  No one is eating their vegetables with dinner.  No one puts the toilet seat down . . . which you of course don’t realize until you sit down in a dark bathroom at 2:00 AM . . . at which time you realize that not only did the last person not put the toilet seat down, but they also CHOSE NOT TO FLUSH.  And no one likes going to bed on time.  It’s all of your normal, every-day problems, but you’re simply dealing with them out of state.

And I guess that’s fine.  At the end of the day, I will admit, that warm temperatures and a sunny beach does seem to cure a lot of ills.  I am certainly not walking about the beaches of Florida muttering to myself “This Too Shall Pass” just because my yahoo kids are fighting over who gets the better sand castle tools.

But people are funny when it comes to spring break.  In their desperation to get out of town, they will agree to stay with relatives and in-laws and friends even if that means living FOR A WEEK in fairly cramped quarters while putting all of your family issues on public display.  It’s funny, most people can’t really afford to go away on spring break, and yet they do anyway because all you need is some fairly inexpensive round-trip airline tickets, and a friend who lives in Arizona or a brother who lives in California or a father-in-law who lives in Florida and you’ve got yourself a spring break.

My family is no different.  For the fourth year in a row we spent our spring break down in Fort Meyers, Florida at my father-in-law’s place.

Now let me just say that I really like my father-in-law.  And I’m not saying that because he reads my blog.  He doesn’t.  Dear God I don’t want him to.  And if for some reason he’s Googled me and found the blog (I could see my father-in-law doing a quarterly Google Search on me just to make sure I wasn’t wanted in some state) I sincerely hope he hasn’t read some of my past blogs.  And if he has and one of them was “Operation Boyfriend Girlfriend” he should take a far amount of comfort in the fact that my quest to have sex with his daughter multiple times in one day was an EPIC failure.

That all being said, as much as I like my father-in-law, living with him for eight full days is tough.  More to the point, living with him, my wife AND my two kids for eight days is . . . well . . . I think it was after day five . . . which was my third day on the air mattress originally intended for my 13-year old . . . he of course couldn’t sleep on the air mattress, so he got my spot next to my wife in the queen sized bed . . . when I first told myself that “This Too Shall Pass.”

And I feel bad about it.  Maybe that’s the difference this time.  When I’m in the doctor’s office as he searches for my prostate I’m supposed to be saying “This Too Shall Pass.”  But when I’m enjoying my father-in-law’s generous hospitality at his beautiful condo in gorgeous Southern Florida I probably shouldn’t be saying “This Too Shall Pass.”

That’s awful.  And yet . . . . kids fighting over the XBOX, the wife telling me she’s not having sex with me while her father’s in the next room (for some reason this never seemed to bother her in high school, and yet after 17-years of marriage it’s a problem), my father-in-law eating my double stuffed Oreo’s (I know it was him . . . I think he did it on purpose . . . maybe he’s reading my blog after all), kids arguing over who gets what swim goggles, and only one TV . . . and suddenly I find myself saying “This Too Shall Pass” despite what has otherwise been a wonderful week in Florida.

So maybe the answer is that “This Too Shall Pass” is simply too strong for something like spring break which has plenty of good to outweigh the bad.  Maybe I simply need to come up with another key saying that can be used for occasions like spring break.  Something like “It Could Be Worse.”  Or “At Least The Doctor Doesn’t Have a Finger in My Ass.”  Or “Thank God That Kid who Played Shortstop Isn’t My Son.”  I don’t know?  Maybe sometimes I just gotta remind myself that I’m pretty freaking lucky, and that if spring break with my family at my father-in-law’s place has a few hiccups . . . well then life is pretty good, and I hope it doesn’t pass by too quickly.