The ROI Of Family Bonding And Love

"...Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been..."

Grateful Dead, Truckin'

And just like that, our travel trailer was gone. Not stolen or in an accident. Simply sold to a wonderful retired couple with grandchildren, four years after we had bought it. 

We didn't sell it because we had to. We just weren't using it as much as we thought we would. It was a pandemic buy and it opened up a lot of travel options we had during the summer of 2020 and beyond. And we had no friggin' idea what we were doing. My parents had a truck camper, then a boat, then a motorhome, but I never had to take care of them and/or tow and/or drive them. 

In July of 2020, we wrapped up the paperwork at the dealer, hooked up the rig, and towed our new travel trailer for the first time. Again, no friggin' idea what we were doing. I was scared to death. My wife Amy was nervous, too, but as always, assured me we could do it. 

And we did. I could also back that thing up like a champ, too. It wasn't without a big learning curve and almost breaking lots of things, though. Thankfully we never really broke anything exactly, only slightly damaged some things. I backed our SUV into the trailer hitch that left a dent, one that remains today. Early on with the travel trailer we used it as a safe haven at a campground out of town when the CZU August Lightning Complex fires came within three miles of where we live and the smoke and ash were horrible. We then had to deal with our home security alarm going off when we were gone with me thinking that we were being looted (which we weren't after I drove all the way back to our house in the early morning to check). 

We connected the batteries incorrectly on one trip and nearly fried them. We woke up on another trip with a flat tire on the travel trailer that turned into a bit of a fiasco, although we got home okay. And on that same trip, my kids and I dealt with bullies in a McDonald's. On another trip, we thought our SUV was on fire that began a cascading stress-mess with an anti-climatic ending. 

Even with all of that, in a short period of time we had many great adventures, including an amazing two-week Southwest road trip, a couple of trips Oregon where one of Amy's uncles lives (and who helped us a lot with our travel trailer learning curve!), a trip to Joshua Tree, trips to the Columbia in Sonora, trips down the central coast to Paso Robles and Avila Beach, trips to see my family in the Central Valley (KOA campgrounds are great especially when there's a pool!), and a few others. And through it all I took care of my family's poop.

Our kids are now teens, and the last few times we went on a trip in the trailer camper, they didn't like it. Hated it, actually. Not the parts we did outside of the travel trailer, just the staying in the camper and the sleeping parts. Our dog Jenny always disliked going with us in the travel trailer, too. It always stressed her out and we had to crate her in the camper when we went places that didn't allow dogs. 

Amy and I had aspirational ideas about what we'd do with our travel trailer in the years after we bought it. When we first got it, we were ready to go, and we had plans to travel in it together when the kids were old enough to stay by themselves, and eventually when they were out of the house. I think that, like in the beginning as a pandemic buy, we romanticized what it would be like to travel in our camper. 

But in the past year it's not how we've traveled, and won't be in the foreseeable future. We hated the camper sitting in storage and not being used. Because what happens when things sit and aren't being used? They breakdown and fall apart. And we didn't want that to happen, so we sold it to some very nice people who will take good care of it. 

We did have amazing adventures, though, and we made miles of special memories. We saw so many beautiful landscapes and met some wonderful people. We also learned a lot about travel trailers, towing, how your mileage sucks when you're towing, and how easy it is to almost break stuff. However, the biggest lesson of all was also the greatest return on our investment. The ROI of family bonding and love.

 

Across The Middle Spectrum

Ironically our family was at the amusement park called Great America when the assassination attempt happened. Someone had shot former President Trump in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Multiple rounds were fired, and the shooter also killed another bystander and critically wounded two others. 

We discussed briefly as a family about why violence like this is never okay, whether you support the candidate or not. Afterwards I worried about what might happen now. Just like when I watched the violent protests after George Floyd's murder and the January 6 insurrection unfold.

Will there be more violence after this assassination attempt? If so, when and where? I thought about all this as I watched the diverse group of families pass back and forth. Groups of teens also walked past us, laughing and teasing each other, not thinking about the adult world breaking down. If any of them had heard the news, no one seemed to be worried about it. 

I remember when I was a teen President Reagan was shot. I also remember how upset my parents got, too. But what I don't recall was the polarizing political hatred we have today. I mean, there's always been a liberal-conservative divide, but I wasn't paying as much attention back then because I was only 15 years old. Our teens are the same age now, and although I'd argue they're more aware than Amy and I were, they're still teens whose attention spans move on quickly. 

Letting our fear of extremism dictate our lives and where we go and what we do isn't the answer, because that's not living; that's not freedom. But I also can't imagine living in a country where my family must be wary about what we believe and who we support and what we share publicly for fear of being targeted, attacked verbally and/or physically, or even jailed or killed. Although, it does feel like we're on the messy fringe of that now in America. After the assassination attempt, we keep hearing from other leaders that there's no place for this kind of violence in America, and yet, here it is.

So, in today's America, we live in a polarized ideological nightmare. You're either with us or against us. Of God or against. Republican or Democrat. Independent or apathetic. Too conservative or too liberal. Too old or too young. Too black or too white. Too straight or too gay. Too rich or too poor. Very right or very wrong.

And it all feels very wrong when we have to worry about the safety for all of us, adults and kids, across the middle spectrum. Instead of blaming the other side, are we willing talk with one another and work together to figure out how to empathize, compromise, co-exist, and ultimately govern in a way that underscores how our very nation was established on the premise that all of us are created equal? That as American citizens we can all celebrate the rights of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"? Can we convince the polarized extremes to do the same after discounting others deemed not worthy?

Can we? That's an aspirational wish I wish we all could reengage and reinvest in, because for me, that was always the idea for the great United States of America experiment, and one we try to impart on our children. That "we hold these truths to be self-evident," which evidently, many do not. Blessings to us all anyway. 

A Long-Term Well-Being Win

My best friend Robby of 45 years always likes to tell the story of how he almost wasn't part of our long-term friend group. The one that keeps getting together year after year, decades after high school. We first met in 7th grade, and while we became best friends later on in high school, my best friend in 7th grade at the time, Brad, saved Robby from being bullied in wood shop class. Back then I was a skinny, asthmatic, shy, and fearful kid, not a hero, and was relieved and grateful with Brad's intervention. I was also grateful that Robby and I befriended each other through goofy humor and the music of Cheap Trick, Kiss, and many other rock groups at that time.

Our long-time friend-group origin story birthed sometime between our sophomore and junior years in high school. That's when, Robby jokes, he was "included" in our group of friends. It wasn't like one day he got a pass, or any of us for that matter. We had already been amalgamating into this cohort for a few years, based on mutual affection, trust, support, shared interests, communication, respect, humor, and more. 

The thing with me was, I struggled to exclude others. Even when I probably should have. Beyond Robby, my other close friends back in high school, and family, I've had many acquaintances and friends from many differing backgrounds. From college to work to other parents of kids ours go to school with. What I know now, but did quite understand then, was that there was always something to learn from others, friends or not. Sharing knowledge and experiences with one another was how I grew as a person and how it's shaped my life awareness and belief systems over the years. Still is.

The hard part was and is the adulting. My nature was always to be liked, and to exclude others was to not be liked. That can get you in trouble when you're in middle and high school, always trying to please, with it only to backfire on you when you do and say the wrong thing to people about other people. Mercy me I had some failures there.  

But as I failed, grew,  and evolved, there were some difficult adulting decisions to make -- getting a divorce and ending an old friendship from our long-time friend group, just to name a couple. I had to learn boundary-setting and how to exclude others when it came to my own happiness and well-being, sanity and safety, and unfortunately not always empathically either. Conversely, I had to learn that I wouldn't always be included with others and their activities, even when hubris shoved my empathy and understanding to the ground like a bully and said, "What the hell?"

And now our teens are learning about inclusion and exclusion with their own friend groups, and like most normal teens, they want to be liked and included. They need their own space, too, and boundary-setting is new to them and a struggle, but we listen and provide parental and our own experiential feedback. We tell them they don't always have to include, and they will be excluded, and that's okay. 

Boundary-setting and exclusion for well-being and safety is one thing, but exclusion based on fear, ignorance, prejudice, and to purposely hurt can lead only to painful isolation, loneliness, or worse, for both perpetrator and victim. That's a lesson for us all. 

But if they have enduring friendships based on mutual affection, trust, support, shared interests, communication, respect, humor, and more, then it's a long-term well-being win for sure. As I've written before, I'm grateful for the dear inclusive and loving friendships I've had over 40 years now. Blessings to them. I wish the same for our teens as adults.