The Doldrums

Weather is a funny thing. When you’re in the midst of it, at least when you’re in the midst of any of its many extreme forms, you feel as if what you’re experiencing is somehow special, unique. That you’re the only one who’s ever been that cold. That no other walk to school has been quite as brutal as this one. In a capital-B, capital-D Big Deal kind of way.

It’s cold outside. And, you know, that sucks. That little meme going around Facebook with the small sad soul all bundled up in hat and scarf who says, “The air hurts my face. Why do I live where the air hurts my face?” Exactly. So, we talk about it and post about it, and moan and groan and wonder why on earth we live here. Just like we did last winter. And just like we’ll do next winter.

It’s all sort of silly, but it’s real. The weather is indeed significant in that it totally affects your mood. Especially this time of year, that post-holiday dead zone with nothing ahead but long stretches of work and school, accompanied by unshoveled sidewalks and unsee-through-able windshields (I really looked for the right word there, but just couldn’t find it: opaque? blocked? impermeable?). Whatever the word for my windshield, the weather is depressing. We have hit the doldrums.

But being anti-doldrum kind of people, Mark and I have found an antidote to the nastiness of January. And so, today, in just a few hours, we’ll head over to Fairfax and call the kids out of their classrooms (“Please send Braedan and Austin to the office, prepared to leave,”), plop their stunned little selves into the car and drive to the airport. Where we’ll meet up with our friends the Schuberts. And fly to Disney World.

I am squealing inside right now. Squealing. We’ve been keeping this under such tight wraps since last September that I’ve been afraid to even allude to it in any major way. But unless you’re reading this blog on your way to Fairfax School, where you might accidentally tell my children to have a good trip, I think the secret is safe.

I’ve been incessantly hint-dropping lately, just in a playful way that they would never let them guess. “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we could just magically end up somewhere warmer today?” “I have a feeling this will be a good week,” and on and on. But I’ve also talked about all the fun things we’ll do over this four day weekend, like clean their bedrooms and catch up on our rest. They are clueless, to say the least.

We’ve been to Disney once, after Austin finished treatment the first time, when he was 18 months old. But he was 18 months old and has no memory of it whatsoever. And even Braedan, then just four, can barely recall anything except what’s captured in pictures. That was the trip where, one evening as we strolled through the countries of Epcot, Austin ran along behind his brother in soft-serve-soaked pajamas, and some man walked past us and remarked, all calm and casual like it meant nothing at all, “Now there’s a boy who’s happy to be alive.” And I stopped dead in my tracks and wheeled around to watch him walk off in the other direction, completely unaware of the significance of what he had said. Happy to be alive? You. Have. No. Idea.

So now we’ll spend the next five days being happy to be alive, in the happiest place on earth (and one day in Hogwarts, my geek fantasy come true).

No doldrums for us.