Family Vacations

I don't think that families were ever meant to spend a whole bunch of time together. If one starts the tradition of vacationing together on a set time line, like every year or every other year, then the family can reasonably insist on quality time together. However, if you are anything like my family, where the trips are sporadic or nonexistent and life has persistently given to situations which fling the family's members in all different directions, you cannot expect to fling those members together. Nevertheless, here we are, expected to get along with gleaming bright faces, without revealing the major flaws and lies that they tell to those who they want to impress, or those who they don’t want to disappoint. 

We are supposed to play along and make concessions. Stand back while brothers lie to relatives so that the parents don’t look like they did a bad job, and they didn’t but that is what people think when a child is doing nothing with their life. So what do you do when you and your family don’t get along and have nothing in common? Nothing. Try to keep your mouth shut when they recall facts that aren’t true and memories that never happened. I wish someone had told me these things before I went on this trip. 

So there it is, advice from someone who wishes someone would have told her this. Perhaps when you go on your family vacation, you will heed my advice and you may have a good time. But then again, it all depends on your family.