Marble Pedestal: Family vacations

The idea of being trapped in close quarters with our families can be daunting. When we dread the idea of sleeping next to snoring parents and having to fight through siblings to get to the shower, we might even begin to miss our houses — where we have a bedroom all to ourselves, and there is more than one shower. In other words, we miss being able to avoid our family. 

But how often do we even spend time with our families? I will dig my heels into the argument that watching TV together does not count. Spending time with Michael Scott or Devi Vishwakumar or Ted Lasso — that is watching other people learn about each other, rather than learning more about the people surrounding us. 

Family vacations effectively force us to spend time together. They are an opportunity to pause our daily worries, ignore the fifteen new messages on Instagram, and leave work where it belongs — at work. Rather than laughing at the adventures of a person on TV, we can pursue those adventures. We can discover things about our families that we would never have otherwise. For instance, who can be the calmest when we get stuck in the Vancouver Airport overnight because someone’s visa to Vietnam got denied? Not my sister, apparently. It was her visa. 

I think the best part of family vacations, whether it is a weekend in Calgary or a transcontinental voyage from Bolivia to Argentina, is the shared memories. While you may forget sitcom episodes within a year, the moment that you witness a beautiful mountain range, or the time a kangaroo kicks you — that will remain crystal clear. Good or bad, we hold onto these experiences for a lifetime.

I am so grateful that my family was able to go on so many vacations before my mom passed in April. It can be very difficult to make time for each other nowadays, especially as vacationing becomes less and less accessible. A vacation does not necessarily have to be a trip. Just by looking away from the screens once in a while, by locking the paperwork and homework in another room for an hour, we give ourselves the space to simply exist with each other. Even if we cannot afford a vacation, we cannot afford to lose time together.