Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Vacationing on Vacation.

We went away. Far and away... well, kind of.

Our unit-of-three vacated Mass for warmer climes... no seriously, we went to Disneyworld in FL in the DEAD of Hot-As-Hell-Hurricaine Season. *Wiping sweat thinking of it.

Ask me how it was.

Ok, wait. First, lemme provide some background you may, if you're a semi-reader of this blog, already know or be able to appropriately assume:

1. I am 31.
2. Our daughter is 2 (and fresh).
3. I've never been to Disneyworld.
4. I've got that "bad", "good" "kinky" in-between hair.
5. I've developed an affinity toward Princess Tiana.


So effing what. Lots of folks, parents in their 30s haven't taken their fresh ass kids to WD. And who cares about a friggin princess... Well, in all my 30+ kinky-headed years, ain't a one of them princesses been brown, had two jobs, missed a parent with her whole heart, or set an example for always aiming to do the right thing, if self-righteously so. It's an understatement to say: I get you girl.

I grew up in a time when kids, brown kids on brown kids, called each other African Booty Scratcher. That ish is funny, but it ain't. And if you're part-time homeless, or look like you might-could scratch your booty (as um, I'm assuming I did as a fuzzy headed part-time homeless kid) brown princesses, or some other animated or real character maintaining the whole you are somebody steez would have been a great aside.



In any event, I cried, and I'm a crier, so I cry-cried at the meeting of said princess, and at the parade when my daughter; a child who lives a very different life than my own, received a full-faced smile and hug from said character.

I cried when we got on the plane and I realized I was going somewhere not out of necessity, or for work, or in running away, but for whimsy.

I cried when I realized how thoughtful the place was; sitting under a shorn hedge shaped like Minnie Mouse. Not a heavy cry, but a whimper.

I cried a little at the beach, at the silence of the shoreline, no houses blocking the view of the sea.

And, perhaps not as much as I cried at the castle, I held a heavy lump in my chest that this is an experience my parents likely will never, ever experience. And part of me doesn't know what to do with all this "understanding". I got a full two weeks of it.

Perhaps I'll learn more at the cusp of my next vacation to Disney World.
Which, I'm hoping is next year.

XO

D