Looking Up When Things Are Down

My college boyfriend (it’s OK, Colan has met him, they’ve hugged) says he goes into situations with low expectations. It allows one to minimize disappointments and maximize “being pleasantly surprised.” I’m more of an expect-the-brochure-experience-Pollyanna kinda person and manage my expectations retroactively. Sounds like it shouldn’t be a thing, I know. I can’t find the downside in finding the humor in situations, and bare minimum, feeling the disappointment, making the best of things, and then moving on. (Quick aside: I just learned there is “Pollyanna syndrome” while checking spelling, and there’s nothing Pollyanna about it. (Thanks Human (pseudo?) Psychology for taking the fun out of everything.)

Disappointment is part of living, and it still manages to find us the same way it did when we had a proper mailing address. (Guess life on the lam doesn’t pay after all.) Our last leg turned out to be an utter catastrophe! We decided to start 2025 with a bang (kinda literally) and drove 1700 miles to catch the SpaceX South Texas launch. AND convinced my uncle and aunt to drive down from Missouri to join us for the adventure. Talk about pressure. We all first met in Houston, just in time for record-low temps. Who would have guessed the first time we used our insulated water hose and sewer line cozy (nothing cozy about that) would be in the Gulf Coast Region of Texas?! Not me, that’s for sure. Still, we were together at a fantastic RV resort, Eric and Jay’s, and the Space Center Houston VIP tour was equally fantastic. The food scene left us wanting to eat through Houston on a subsequent visit, which counts for a lot in my book. Plus, we had the almost unbridled excitement and anticipation of the looming Starship launch charging through our veins—the world’s our oyster and all that.

So on our third bitterly cold morning, with a malfunctioning bedroom slide (shoutout to manager-not-owner Jay for the save, with an assist from Uncle Alan!), our little RV caravan left for South Padre. After being there a week—much longer than we had planned, the sunless, wet, cold weather, the incessant jackhammering outside our windows (guess everyone doesn’t like pickleball after all), and the seemingly endless moving launch date made us feel like we were losing our minds. Like, action-needs-to-be-taken-or-gone-forever kinda losing. We all agreed on a cut-n-run. Naturally, that meant the clouds parted, and the launch happened the next day, with the four of us five hours away, tucked under the San Antonio sky. Can’t win ‘em all.

We’re already all laughing at the experience. The Pollyanna in me values above all else that we got two weeks with two of our favorite people on earth (and after possibly the worst “vacation” ever, they still count as that, hah!). Despite it all, we had so much fun, which ensures all the other bologna gets reduced to a great story. And though we all vowed never to return, seeing a successful Starship launch remains a bucket list item for all of us. Something tells me we’ll be back with bells on, though probably complaining loudly through our laughter. Especially if there’s jackhammering.

Hope to see you out there!—CL