Back from the house of mouse

If ever there was a feeling of being dropped, hard, back into reality, it is when you return home from
Disneyworld. It is a magical place of make-believe. I don't think there is a better place to forget your
troubles. So hard to come home, made all the more painful that it was 82 degrees with a slight breeze
moving the palm tree fronds, and 42 degrees back here in Jersey. But, as I kept telling my depressed
13 year-old, we were very lucky to have been able to take this trip. She has been to Disney 3 times
in the last 8 years, some people never go at all. It was a great time. I'm not fond of flying but having half
my family on the plane made for some helpful diversion. The laughing started right away at the Orlando
airport as my father somehow used coupons to score a souped up Dodge Charger as a rental, while us
and my sister's family spent even more to drive a Toyota Camry and a Mitsubishi Galant. (Cathy upgraded
with one of Dad's leftover coupons to a nicer Chevy model when she went to pick up my other sis and nephew  from the airport 2 days later) As we walked to pick up the rental cars in the parking garage, of course we came to my parents' metallic orange muscle car first, hence Tim and Chris arrived at our rentals looking like they'd just lost their best friends. We had a ton of laughs on our trip. We drove out to visit Tim's Aunt and Uncle and had dinner with them one night. The weather was superb. It was in the mid 70's in the beginning of
the week and 81 and 82 by the end. Gorgeous. We actually got to use the huge pool and hot tubs.Tim had started getting a cold before we left, which I caught by Wednesday, which stunk, but it could be worse, right? It isn't easy trying to do Disney with a lot of people.  We were 9 and then 11 by Tuesday. Different ages, different priorities. My brother-in-law is an "always late" type. My sister warned him for weeks that he was not to hold our whole family up. The warnings didn't work much. We waited for him constantly. One day, we just left to go to the park and they had to find their own way. He rarely missed stopping at a food stand or drink kiosk and I marvel at the fact that one can spend several thousand dollars going on a trip and have eating and drinking be the first priority. Heck, I can do that at home. To each his own. It was great fun, despite that. I have been catching up with facebook and blogs this morning. I read something about "new normals" for cancer patients and caregivers over at Sarah's blog(Our journey with Multiple Myeloma). One thing, that I don't think anyone can understand, unless they're in the position, is that part of living with this "new normal" is that we know that
coming back on vacation here is not a given. While Tim, Olivia, and I wanted to make sure we got to see everything we wanted to see while there, (we didn't but hit most of it), my sister and her husband knew that they'd be back again when their kids were older so there was no such urgency on their part to get to everything. That's the way it is when you are living with cancer and checking off a bucket list. You may not
speak of it, but you are thinking that you may never come this way again. Even at holidays, you know that others think of future ones as foregone conclusions. For us, this is simply not so. We have to experience each thing with the knowledge that we may not experience it again. There is an underlying sense of urgency in our
lives that people cannot understand. They can project into the future with some sense of assurance that it will happen. We have to live in the moment and enjoy what is happening today only. I've said it before, kids are
great at this, adults..................not so much. But Disney is a place that makes that as easy as it's gonna get. I
did not think we'd see it again after our "08 trip. I guess I should be hopeful and say that we just may go again some day. That's what this "new normal" kinda is. Trying to be hopeful, yet dealing with a very harsh
reality too. It's a daily balancing act that I see as mainly trying to stave off depression. Well, my way of dealing with it is vacations. They are my breaks from reality and I'm so grateful that we are able to get them.
A lot of really good memories were made this past week. We are blessed.