Have A Wonderful Spring Break But I Won’t Be Going Anywhere Because I’m Not Wealthy Like You Are!
I have so much spring break bitterness. Can we make that into a hashtag? #Springbreakbitterness. I mean, I am happy for everyone I know who takes their family to visit the mouse or to a lovely seaside resort or camping for spring break. Y’all go and have fun and send me a postcard but I’ll be at home trying to entertain my kids with Netflix and cookie baking and other fun-filled activities. Like picking sticks up out of my yard. I know this is all a gigantic white whine and I do realize how lucky and blessed (#blessed) I am and that we always have enough food to eat and running water and electricity but I can’t help but feel jealous when my Facebook feed starts to fill up with everyone’s plans for the week long spring break. I don’t get how average families can afford these things.
Maybe people are excellent at budgeting and don’t resort to ordering pizza as much as we do. Maybe families forgo HBO in order to spend a week building sandcastles and playing in the sunshine. I think part of my problem is that I’m horrible at budgeting and I’m not good at saving money and the only time we care about putting money away is for college or retirement. I could probably manage to stick some money away on a monthly basis but then something always comes up, a major appliance not covered by homeowner’s insurance will break or the car will need something or my kids demand money for book fair. All these dumb little things add up and before I know it I am out of fun money and things like week-long trips seem totally out of the question.
Growing up my parents took us to the beach and places like that. I always feel guilty that I’m not creating the same memories for my own kids by taking them on vacation. They have travelled before, but it’s been a few years and we have no tradition, like going to the same place year after year. I know people who do this. I sort of hate them.
I’d probably be able to afford taking my kids somewhere if we were doing all these stupid home repairs. My kid’s will enjoy spring break seeing the carpet removed from our main bathroom. That’s fun, right? They can help select a moderately priced tile and we can all go to Target and buy some new towels. Maybe I can buy them a slushy maker and put some paper umbrellas in their cups and they can marvel at getting a toilet that doesn’t seep filthy water on the carpet. It will be as good as Disneyworld. The rest of you going somewhere lovely with maid service that makes your bed for you and eating at restaurants and gazing at picturesque sunsets and working on your tan? Think of me. I’ll be dreaming of the day that my day to day wasn’t such a lame moneysuck and I get to join you at the beach. Until then at least I’ll have pizza and HBO.
(Image: J.D.S/shutterstock)
