The Christianville Spirit
The Spirit that Knows Love
April 3rd, 2019-TCS # 634
Happy April and Ahoj, My Readers! Yes, This Greeting sounds like a Pirate, that is actually how They say Hello in The Czech Republic as well as Slovakia. To be Fair, Slovak and Czech are Very Close Languages. Anyway, There was a Reason I put “Ahoj” there, or What I should refer to as The “International Pirate” Greeting. I say that because Ahoy with Y is How We in The US would say the Pirate Greeting. So, As of Right Now, if You can believe it, that It was been 2 Years since I went on a Cruise without My Mom! Hard to Believe that, Right?! Often I watch Cruise Vlogs on YouTube and Reminded of All The Fun I had. But, This Newsletter is not about The Fun I had. Well, Some of It is But, The Part that I want to focus on is The Fact that I showed a lot of Independence because I did This Cruise without My Mom or Brother. Now, One would think that It is No Big Deal to go on Cruise but, For Me, It was a Big Deal! It was quite a Feat between The Preparations to Actually, Going on the Cruise. So, I am going to rerun The Amazing Story about How It happened. Oh! and I wrote Two Newsletters about It and Therefore, You get to have a Partial Double-Feature. So, Without further a due, I will let the Me from 2017 explain! Enjoy and Happy Cruising!
Portions of This Newsletter was written on April 12th of 2017 (Refer to Newsletter 540) - Part 1
Well, Actually, I have quite an Amazing Feat to Tell You about. I Went on a Cruise. For The First Time in like, 14 Years. 7 Days, 4 People traveling together. Going on The Carnival Breeze to Roatan, Honduras; Belize; and, Cozumel. All without My Mom (Well, Actually, without ANY of My Parents!). Now, I know You are expecting a Traditional Cruise Story, but This is what I believe to be a Very Real Cruise Story. So, a Little Background Story. So, Last Time I went on a Cruise was a lot. Lots of Activity, Go-Go-Go, Do This, Do That, Do This!, and Yes, a Little Recklessness in there too. And, Yes, This Cruise had all the Activity, Things to do constantly, and A Ton of Food, but This Cruise was presented in a Way that Yes, We can do Some Things but, We also have to have some Moderation and Calming in between. On Top of that, It was Done with People that Knew Me well enough to want to Take Me on a Cruise, It was A Wonderful Gesture and Understood Me well enough to Help in The Case that I needed it. So, This Family (A PTLS Family) and I had discussed Several Times about A “PTLS Cruise”, a Mini-PTLS Vacation before or after The PTLS Conference. Well, One Day, They offered for Me to go on a Cruise saying that They will provide The Transportation and You just have to say Say Yes or No. At First, I thought I’m not sure, I went on a Cruise before and It was VERY Overwhelming. I came back more stressed than before. I Am not Sure! Eventually, after some Comfort from both of Them and My Mom, I figured that I would be Stupid to say No. Even after I said, I would go, I was Very Anxious because I knew about All The Activity and Craziness that was Involved in a Cruise. My Mom and I had Several Discussions that How One Simple Experience in One Thing or Even, One Place; Can effect your impression of Said Thing. So, To Me, A Cruise meant that You were running a Mile a Minute doing XYZ and Getting a little Trouble in there never hurt, Right? I am believing that It took a Good Heart-to-Heart with My Friend, Deb (“The Famous Deb”) to convince me that I should go on a Cruise with Them. The Biggest Anxiety that ruled all of Them about going on a Cruise, was The Fact that I was going without My Mom. If I did this, It would be The First Time I went anywhere without My Mom since 2004, when I took a Trip with My Brother to My Mom’s Dad, Popi’s House back when He was around. After I formally said that I was going on The Cruise, I did not know all of the Things that I had to do Mentally to prepare for an Adventure like This, It took Many Meetings with The Family, Talking about Concerns and Questions, Talks with My Mom, a Few Meltdowns, and Preparing My Mind. Now, As The Cruise started coming closer, I got more Anxious. I Want to Make Sure that We have Planned What We are going to do for Excursions! It was One of Those Times, for lack of a Better Way to Describe It. I turned into My Grandma Honey, Got to have a Plan a Month in advance! The Man of The Family, “The Father Figure”, We’ll call him until I say their names, was like “Relax, Everything will be Fine. We will Plan as We Go”. Looking back, I am very Glad I followed His Lead. Anyway, A Day before The Cruise, It was Time to Pack. Thank God, My Mom was there to help! I had Everything that I needed, Sunglasses; Sun Screen; A Tuxedo for Formal Night (Held Two different Days); Swim Suit, but The Most Complicated Part for Me was The Clothes. I was going on a Cruise for a Week without My Mom and I would not have contact with Her for a Few Days at Sea until We reached a Port. It made me Very Anxious to do This! My Mom tried her hardest to help me remember what to wear on What Day and Eventually We settled on “Here are Some Nice Clothes to Wear in The Evening or If It gets Cold” but, also “Let’s get clothes that will Match, either way that You match them. You can Mix and Match if You want to”. So, The Night before The Cruise, We all met for Dinner, and discussed Any other Concerns or Questions that Either of Us had. Right before We go, I hop in The Car, My Mom comforts me and asks if I am Ready or Not and I said, “I am Ready as I will Ever Be”.
Portions of This Newsletter was written on April 19th of 2017 (Refer to Newsletter 541) - Part 2
I forgot to Mention that I went on a Ropes Course on the Top Deck of The Ship. Me and The PTLS Family Members all did it. It actually was pretty scary but, We figured that Why not try it out?! It took a lot for both of us to do it, We got to do it at Our Pace, and Got applause at The End. I forgot to also mention that I tried a bunch of Different Foods on The Ship, among them, Escargot; Braised Ox Tongue; Veal; Frog Legs; and, Mussels. I found The Frog Legs and Mussels to be the Most Gross. (Sorry Michael!) My Brother, when He was younger LOVED Frog Legs! The Best was The Ox Tongue because It tasted like Pork.
I actually left ALL of My Electronics behind! Yes, I can not believe that either! I had never done that, not since I have ever had Electronics. I will tell you though, It felt really good, not having any Electronics with Me.
But, anyway It felt like I had forgotten what things looked like, What has going on before and while I was Gone, Feeling like Everything was Changing (and, Construction on My Street during The Process, did not help at all), and Finally, Processing Everything that I did, Places I went, The Fun that We have on The Trip! But, This is where I feel that I should be Real about.
So, Imagine for Me, something in The Mind of a PTLSer. Now, Up until This Point of My Life, I had never been able to Explain Being Overwhelmed and Why It takes so Long for Me to Recover from Something that Typical People would consider “Fun”. Now, I want to make Clear that I could not have gone with any Better People! And, Yes, I had Lots of Fun! It was Unbelievable, UnBelizeable! (We went to Belize, We can say that!) They made sure that between Their Child and Myself, that We were doing Alright as well as Taking Steps and Provisions to keep us from Getting Overwhelmed or It being too much. Believe Me though, There are Times in a Cruise when It can get Overwhelming, even if You don’t mean it to be. Anyway, on to My Analogy!
So, Imagine that on a Vacation, Trip, or Event, that You have given a Plate of Food, One Item is The Past, One Item is The Fear of Unknown, and One Item is Things You that You do not Understand. Now, Said Items vary in Size depending on The Event in Question. It may be in Large Quantities sometimes, No Big Deal other times. Every Day, You eat the Item and When You do, You have analyze each Item, as well as Each Bite, and Then Digest Each Bite. Well, Imagine that You are eating all This Food at a Lightning Go-Go-Go Pace instead of The Slow Pace that You are used to. Does not sound Easy does it? It sort of reminds me of All of The Food that I ate on The Cruise. I could count 7 Things in various sizes that I ate, literally in a 5 Hour Period. Then, Again, Do as The Romans do, I wanted to try Everything.
I was asked a Very Thought Provoking Question. When was The Last Time that I went on a Trip without ANY Family Members and/or Going to a Family Members’ Home? Well, The Last Time I went on a Trip that I mentioned in Last Week’s Newsletter was with My Brother and We flew to Ohio to Popi’s (My Mom’s Dad) House to drive up north to a Cabin for Spring Break in Northern Lower Michigan (Top of The Mitten) and that was back in 2004. But, Actually, There was a Time I went somewhere without Any Family, just Friends from School. It was when I went to Camp Classen back in Elementary School, Back in The 90’s. It went Way worse than The Cruise, Way Worse! I did not have a lot of Fun at Camp. I had to deal with Bullies, who One Night stole My Underwear while I was showering. They thought it would be Funny to lock me in The Bathroom (Toilet, for You folks Around The World) on The Bus while We were at a Rest Area. There were supposed to be Adults watching Us! And, Yes, They helped, a Little a bit. I have forgave The People in Question for doing that. So, Perhaps, that did not help with The Anxiety about going on The Cruise, on top of previously going on a More Overwhelming Cruise. All in all, The Best for Last Thing that I forgot to mention was about Our Cruise Director, Schwartz. He was a Really Funny Guy! He believed that all of Passengers on “The Lovely and Beautiful Carnival Breeze” was Family. So, After Every Announcement, He would end with “Love You!”. By The Middle of The Cruise, He would say “Love You!” followed by either “Love You More!” or “Stop It, I Love YOU More!”. I, of course, would respond to Him, Pointing upwards “Love You!”. I did get to talk to Him for a Short Time. By The Way, If You want to go on a Cruise and Hear Him say that, Ride on The Carnival Breeze, as He will be on it for Several Months.
Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Vacations are seen Differently through Different Eyes. Independence is what it is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment