Flip Flops and Awkwardness.

We made it to northern Michigan without incident. We also made it back from northern Michigan without incident, unless you consider keep-you-awake-and-in-misery food poisoning from crappy road food an 'incident'. Or if you consider sitting in traffic for an extra 1.5 hours an 'incident'. Because those things happened on the way home and still the trip was, in my mind, a great success.

If you're stuck just outside of West Branch in hellish construction related traffic realizing you just ate some pathogen-laden food and are now not moving at all on the interstate, do not use your watch to time how long it takes you to actually move a mile.

You might think, as I did, it will make you realize it's not really as bad as you're feeling it is, but that will only happen if it doesn't take you 32.7 minutes to go 2.3 miles. When it takes you 32.7 minutes to go 2.3 miles and you're faced with the (written down) proof of the fact that you're trapped on the road to hell with no exit in sight and no alternate route in mind you'll start to feel anxious and also angry.

Then you'll worry about that pathogen-laden lunch you just consumed because I can pee on the side of the road with the best of them but I like to vomit and/or do other things in the privacy of my own home.

Our trip was only 1.5 days total, and yet we packed in an entire week of activities into that day and a half. I packed the kids and I thinking we'd sit around the beach and read about how afraid of being alone Nick Lachey is. My kids love reading about Nick Lachey.

Since I thought we'd be sitting at the beach I packed a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a couple of pairs of underwear for the children. For myself I packed a pair of jeans, which I wore to the beach, and a pair of flip flops.

Imagine how fun it was to hike in flip flops! And sail in t-shirts! (I bought overpriced tourist sweatshirts for the kids. Should they suffer for my unpreparedness?)

Jean invited me up to stay at their vacation rental and I used to babysit for Jean's kids who are now 16, 19 and 22. I loved her kids as much as I could ever imagine loving anyone at that time. I loved playing with them and watching Jean parent them and I learned a lot of good things from being part of their family in that way.

Saying that probably hurts my own family, which is probably why I've never mentioned Jean's name or posted her picture on this website.

I used to go up north to babysit nearly every summer and I spent time with their friends back then, since I was babysitting.

I watched them all and felt horribly out of place with all the ugliness I'd left at home. I wondered if I'd ever feel as at ease as they all did. I wondered if I'd have a husband who would love me like theirs did. I wondered if I'd ever figure out how to be as normal as they were. I wondered if laughter would ever come freely to me and I wondered if I'd ever have friendships with people who understood who I was.

So these last few days, being back with those people as an adult with my own children, I felt 16 again. I felt out of my own element where I do have friendships where I can be myself and I don't feel awkward and I have a husband who drags me along into the crowd when all I want to do is feel ugly and stupid.

I went to this spectacular house and had dinner at the grown up table and I watched. I reminded myself I'm 32 now, these are my two beautiful children and I have a life with great friends and an amazing husband and I've got what I thought they had back then. I got what I wanted.

Still I just couldn't shake the awkwardness of being 'Lissie' in the world of grown ups. Not just grown ups, Professional Grown Ups.

This feeling was helped immensely on the huge sailboat we rode on as I watched the Pro-Grown Ups hanging out, sharing cocktails and great stories from an awkward spot on the deck. But it gets better because as I sat on the deck, holding a lot of paraphenalia only a non-sailing type would hold, the boat tipped sharply.

I knew I should get off the deck and sit with everyone else but felt foolish moving around. Only I don't exactly know why, I suppose I just wanted to be subtle and 'cool'. So instead of simply standing up and moving to a safer spot on the boat, I gripped the top part of the boat as tightly as I could. I gripped until the angle was too much and my shoes, camera and (most importantly) my beer went crashing to the far side of the boat.

At which point I combusted into flames and wondered why it is I have to be a self concious freak all the time.

When I relayed my thought process to Jean on the way to dinner, when we were alone, she said, "No one thought twice about what you were doing on the deck."

And I realized then that I'm apparently starring in my own private television show where I am a glaring idiot half the time. Thankfully, though, no one's really watching my show and hopefully the network will cancel it.

Speaking of the past and being the 16 year old me even as a 32 year old: guess who's changing therapists? Guess who I'm going to see? I'll give you a hint: it's not Dr Phil.