Forgetting, and remembering, a week in Aruba
Highlights (at least, what I remember) from a recent trip and a roundup of reader recommendations for packing toiletries.
Hello Midlifers,
NOTE: This post will probably be too long to show up in full in your email. Click on the title to read the whole thing on the web.
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal
Driving home from JFK Airport last Sunday night after a week in Aruba, I wondered what I was thinking about when I told my daughters that we should just suck up the 90-minute drive in order to get cheaper plane tickets.
“It worked out last time,” I reasoned to them, much the same way women throughout millennia have ended up with more than one child.
We had flown in and out of JFK to Aruba the exact same week in 2022 and from what I recalled, it was fine. We took a crack-of-dawn flight out on a Sunday morning and returned late on a Saturday night. I had found a car service to drive us there in my car and even with the added expense of the driver, it was still hundreds and hundreds of dollars cheaper than flying out of Newark Airport, about 45 minutes away from our house.
Immediately after my older daughter locked in the plane tickets, I started to remember some details from last year. Most significantly, the day of our flight out coincided with turning the clocks back — great news as we got an extra hour of sleep and getting picked up at 4 a.m. felt a little less hideous. The bad news, our departure from JFK also coincided with the New York City Marathon, which kicks off on the Verrazano Bridge — the very same one we needed to cross to get out to the airport in Queens.
“How could I have forgotten about that?” I wondered to myself as some details from the year before began to make themselves clear. What started to become really clear, was that I really remembered nothing from that beach vacation with my two daughters in 2022. Like, nothing.
What did I remember? Mostly that we had terrible weather — it rained every single day we were there. And not just those passing showers that come and go when you’re in the tropics. We woke up to dark clouds and then sat outside under thatched umbrellas on the beach with the rain coming down around us. Everyone at the timeshare resort where we stayed told us they’d never had such bad weather. “I’ve been coming to Aruba for 25 years and never seen weather like this,” one older woman told me one morning while we were sipping our coffees and trying to stay dry near the bathrooms during a sudden downpour.
The girls and I had arrived at the timeshare last year and slowly realized that there was a whole vacation culture we knew nothing about. For instance, it probably took about three days to realize that the reason we were couldn’t find anywhere to sit on the beach when we came down at 9 a.m. was that people get down there at 5 a.m. every day to claim their chickee. There was a whole system in place it took us days to understand. And then, despite knowing what the deal was, we all fought about and held grudges over who was going to go down and get a spot each morning. No one wanted to wake up at the crack of dawn (nay, before dawn) on their vacation. It created tension.
We also arrived in Aruba last year with no dinner reservations and having done little to no research before the trip, so no clue where to even go. We ended up waiting in some crummy places nearby for a table and it’s not even like I’m going to while away the time having a drink at the bar with a drink.
And finally, when we went away last year together, it still felt like the old dynamic with me serving as the de facto tour guide who everyone is waiting to tell them what to do. And guys, I am tired of that role. I’m not especially good at it and I just don’t want to be the mom all the time any more.
So, when my friend offered me her timeshare again for this year, I was surprised when the girls jumped on it. Another thing I recalled was that there was a lot of tension between the three of us on the beach in Aruba. Both of them seemed cranky and annoyed with me most of the trip and my younger daughter had made it clear that she was over family trips.
But the price was right and I decided that if they wanted to give it another shot, how could I pass up an opportunity to spend a week with my girls in the Caribbean? Even if I didn’t remember anything about last year other than the lousy weather and the whole chickee thing — who doesn’t want to get away from New Jersey in November and sit in the sun?
I knew off the bat things were going to be different this year when one daughter told me she’d been getting lots of dinner ideas from TikTok. And then the other daughter drew up an itinerary as they made reservations for the week. We also agreed beforehand that since we all want a beach chickee right along the water, that we’d take turns going down every morning to procure a spot for the team, and created a system for that.
The day before we left for the trip, the girls and I ran around getting our nails done and spray tans (obviously). When the woman came to spray me I told her I didn’t even care if I turned orange since it was just me and my girls and we didn’t know or care about what anyone in Aruba thought of us. We drove to Target on the way home to pick up travel sized toothpastes and suntan lotion to put in our carry-ons and as we stopped at the front of the store to admire all the holiday merch, I spied some monogram necklaces lined up in bright boxes on the table.
The letter pendants were that trendy style I’ve been seeing more of lately (and of course want), and they must just have put them out because there were plenty of necklaces with each of our name’s letters. Plus, they were $20.
“Oh, we need to get vacation necklaces,” I told them, and they nodded in agreement as I scooped three into our shopping cart. I paid for them and when we got home, handed each her box and we all put them on.
Every night that week in Aruba, we all coordinated our dinner outfits. One night was “Barbie night,” with all of us in bright pink pants and dresses. Another we were in all black. Later in the week, we sat at a table on the beach, our sandals tossed to the side so we could dig our toes into the cool sand, wearing juicy reds and pinks.
But no matter the evening’s theme, I noticed that we always wore our necklaces. We took a million selfies or had our servers snap a pic of us standing together, the pendants dangling beneath whatever other gold necklaces we had stacked around our necks.
In the end, we had fabulous weather. We had tucked floaties into our suitcases we had bought in Aruba last year and every time we found ourselves floating in the warm clear water, the hot sun beating down overhead, I’d say, “Oh girls isn’t this everything we wanted last year?”
Another thing we argued about last year was who was sleeping where. The one-bedroom unit had a king bed and a pull-out couch and obviously, I was too good for a sofabed. So the girls took turns sharing the king with me and also decided they would leave the sofabed opened the entire week, thus eating up about half the unit’s floor space and making it even more cluttered.
This year, I had writing I wanted to get up and do and also, didn’t feel like tiptoeing around the sleeping beauties. I told them I would try the couch a night or two and in the end, slept on it the entire week. I’d get up right after whoever was getting out chickee that day left and make coffee and sit on the balcony with my laptop and look out at the ocean.
On Sunday, our last day, there was no chickee designee after we all cycled through our two mornings each. I thought about sleeping in (whatever that means) for a hot second and then instead, set my alarm for 5:00 and headed down with my laptop and coffee mug to sit in the dark on the beach. When it was my first turn to go down there earlier in the week, I wore linen pants I wear as a beach coverup and a light sweatshirt and as soon as I emerged from the air conditioned building, regretted long pants and sleeves. Even at 5 a.m. the air is hot and humid in Aruba.
On the last morning, I pulled a chair in front of where I was sitting to put my feet up and sipped coffee from the travel mug we learned last year we needed to bring from home. I looked up at the dark sky and all the stars that were still out, hanging in the inky darkness for the first hour or as I sat there and worked on my laptop. I could hear the surf rolling in and out and it felt like the bedroom where my daughters were still sleeping with a tiny sound machine filling the room with the sound of crashing waves. As light slowly began to stretch across the sky, I could see the ocean in front of me and tiny waves unfurling across the packed white sand.
I looked out from under my chickee at the early morning sky streaked with light pinks and purples and thought about the week. All the hours we spent together reading. Screaming alongside each other as a speedboat whipped us across the ocean in a tube. Getting dolled up for dinner in front of the bathroom mirror, the three of us crammed together in the bathroom. I reached for my new pendant at my neck and held it between my thumb and forefinger and closed my eyes, trying to burn every moment of the week into my memory.
sunday shares: read + watch + cook + buy
All your toiletry recommendations in one place. In last week’s “Asking for a friend,” I asked for recommendations for packing toiletries for trips, and boy did you guys deliver. I thought I’d include a round-up here so that it’s all in one place. To read all comments (or add your own) you can find the convo here.
o Wirecutter recommended toiletry bag
o Travelon set of 7 packing envelopes
o Baggallini clear travel pouches
o Bag-all bag (to file all above pouches in to keep in one — cute — place)
Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I am grateful for all of you who come back here to read my posts, week after week. And for all of you who have been so generous and opened your (fabulous) purses, in support of my work — thank you. It might not be paying the rent but it really helps validate what I make.
See you next Sunday
xoAmy
Thank you for the summary of all the travel essentials- especially as we head into the holiday gift giving season (and Black Friday!)