My husband and I have notoriously bad vacation luck. A few years ago, during Hurricane Charlie, we were at a hotel in Virginia when it started raining in our room at about 2:00 AM. It had nothing to do with the hurricane though. It was due to the yahoos upstairs who left their shower running, then went out for the evening. I heard one drip coming down near a window, and by the time maintenance got there it was like we were in a downpour. Everything was soaked. We had the displeasure of moving the kids and all the gear that comes with them, to another room in the middle of the night.

During the huge blackout of 2003, we were stranded in a hotel in Cleveland. Not only was there no electricity, but there wasn’t any water either. No ice, no flushable toilets, and no gas in our car to get the heck out of the blackout area. AND, to top it all off with a big, fat cherry on top, our daughter was very, very sick with what we later found out was viral meningitis. Ahhh…good times, good times.

A few months ago, my husband and I were at a hotel in Indiana when an alarm went off at 4:00 AM. We were on the 11th floor, and for an hour we heard this over and over, “There is an emergency in the building. Please stay where you are until you receive further instructions.” I sat on the edge of the bed, with my shoes on, ready to run out the door as soon as that voice told me to do so. Thank goodness, she never did.

A couple of days ago we woke the kids at 5:45 AM for our last family trip of the summer. It started raining halfway into our drive and never stopped. We were supposed to go to an amusement park, but instead we ended up walking around Wal-Mart for hours before we could check into our hotel. Woo hoo!

At about 11:30 that night, my husband and I were watching TV in our hotel room, with the kids sound asleep in the bed next to us, when the electricity went out. A few minutes later a fire truck arrived and parked below our 3rd floor window. I barely had time to picture myself fashioning a ladder made of hotel-room bedsheets before the fire alarm went off. We each grabbed a kid, some warm clothes, and the car keys, and evacuated the building with all the other guests. It was cold, it was raining, it was a nightmare. We sat in our car until 2:30 AM before they let us back into our room.

The ride home yesterday was literally hell and high water. We had to drive at a snails pace to get through the massive amounts of water on the road. But, as we would go through the mini-lakes on that little two-lane road, our daughter would laugh out loud. She thought it was FUN! I was clutching the door, constantly checking that seat belts were fastened, and telling my husband to be careful…and she was laughing.

I suddenly thought about how our son had slept through the entire debacle the night before. Neither one of our kids heard the blaring alarm. And, how my daughter, wearing her Daddy’s big sweatshirt, was perfectly content to lie in his arms in the front seat of the car while there were firefighters running around outside. They had no sense that anything was wrong or that there was anything to worry about. As far as they were concerned, they were safe and sound, and Mommy and Daddy would take care of everything.

And, with that realization, I finally found myself with a smile across my face.

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My husband and I have come to the conclusion that we’re no longer youngsters. I realized it sooner than he did, but he’s finally coming around.

For me, the acknowledgement came about a year ago, when I tried to show my daughter how to do a back bend. It had been awhile, so I had enough sense not to go over backward. Instead, I positioned myself on the carpet, put my hands over my shoulders and palms on the floor, and PUUUUUUUSHED up. I held that position for all of two seconds, before I came crashing down on my back, having pulled every muscle between my tailbone and skull. What? When did that happen? Since when couldn’t I do a backbend? It just couldn’t be true. So, to prove to myself that I “still had it”, I tried a headstand, handstand, and the splits. No luck. The best I could muster was a forward roll, and even that hurt my neck. I didn’t “have” anything. I lost it all somewhere along the way.

Shortly after that, I noticed runners my age wearing knee braces. And, my friends started having surgeries for herniated discs, ACL injuries, and torn rotator cuffs. I realized this was serious. This was real. There would be no more messing around with this body of antiquity. I began lifting heavy objects while bending at the knee. I started stretching before AND after I ran, and wearing a wrap on my thrice broken ankle. And, though I often still run up the stairs two at a time, I hold on to the handrail when I do it.

But, through it all, my husband has been in denial. We bought a home gym and he believed he could lift the same amount of weight he did in college. When he couldn’t, he blamed it on inaccurate calibration, not his aging muscles. When he almost blacked out on a roller coaster, he claimed it was the G Forces, not his degenerating inner ear. And, when we went camping a few weeks ago, he and his friend (you may refer to them as The Lost Boys), had delusions of playing basketball and sand volleyball all weekend. Turns out, they mostly drank beer and ate S’mores.

But alas, my husband has seen the light. Stars, in fact. Because when he took our daughter to a water park last weekend, she wanted to see her whippersnapper of a Dad dive off the platform board. He climbed up the ladder and dove off, just as she had requested. Only, when he came out of the water, he didn’t see her proud face. He saw little white floating dots and strings. Big, strong Daddy got his bell rung. And, last night, he FINALLY said, “I guess I’m not 21 anymore.”

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