Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 170

You guys,

You know when you’re in an argument with the love of your life and it’s going nowhere and it’s approaching 10pm, and you’ve just spent the entire day traveling with two little kids, and you’re finally in your hotel room, exhausted and dirty and just want to go to sleep, but you’re not willing to be vulnerable because that would mean admitting you were wrong, so you sit next to each other on the couch with your eyes half open, waiting for the other person to soften because it’s most certainly not going to be you? 

This is where Sam and I were when I finally said,

“Alright, well, I’m exhausted, I’m going to bed. Make sure you leave George’s door open.”

It would be easier to not tell you what the fight was about, because talking about an argument in hindsight is always embarrassing. Always. But embarrassing is where this newsletter lives, so let’s get to it.

We had just arrived at our Marriott Beach Club unit in Miami. Sam was in charge of connecting the Wifi, which we need to utilize the kids’ baby monitors. 

Baby monitors are essential when traveling. They allow us the freedom and peace of mind to sit on our balcony after the kids have gone to bed, or sleep peacefully without worrying we might not hear our little ones cry in another room. They are the first thing Sam takes care of as soon as we plop down all our belongings, which for this trip included four bags, three suitcases, two kids, and a partridge in a pear tree. 

For longer than anticipated, Sam sat at his computer, squinting and cursing and huffing and puffing. Marriott has an antiquated, unsecure system that doesn’t allow you to connect baby monitors. Last time we traveled we brought back-up monitors that don’t run on Wifi but those things suck. The picture was grainy and the range was pathetic, so Sam ordered a travel router, which would allow us to use our Nanit cameras. 

Meanwhile, the kids were… being kids. Getting into everything they shouldn’t get into, tired, cranky, clingy. By the time Sam finally figured it out (something about accessing the Wifi from his computer desktop instead of his phone), and we finally got the kids to bed, we collapsed on the couch, both of us dehydrated with headaches.

Things were going okay while we planned our next day around meals and naptime, but then Sam asked if we should leave George’s bedroom door open and our bedroom door open, in case the Wifi stopped working. 

I could have said, “Yes, that’s a great idea,” and there wouldn’t have been an argument, but instead I responded, “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

I say things like this sometimes, and then Sam tells me I’m being dismissive, to which I dismissively tell him I’m not being dismissive. 

It was hard to get George down for bed, and I didn’t want to risk waking him up by opening his door. Also, Sam spent all that time getting the Wifi to work. It was working. Period. Why would we plan for the Wifi to stop working? ALSO, if George cries, we’ll hear him. We don’t need to leave the doors open.

If I had really thought about it, I would have known that once that kid is asleep, he’s out, and not wanting to open his door was a non-issue. And the Wifi thing, well, I didn’t want to deal with it anymore, so I’d rather just assume it would keep working. And for my last point which Sam pointedly told me was wrong, we would definitely not hear George crying because his room was on the opposite side of the unit, and Layla’s sound machine was on full blast in our room.

But this is rational, got-eight-hours-of-sleep Charlie speaking, not tired, selfish Charlie who just wants to go to bed and doesn’t care about anything other than the fact that she’s pissy because she doesn’t have her EightSleep temperature controlled mattress she’s accustomed to. 

Sam says, “You don’t ever think about this stuff,” which I interpret as: You’re selfish, you’re a bad mom, and you don’t care about our kids. 

It’s no longer about whether or not we should leave the bedroom doors open. 

I walk into our bedroom. Sam stomps around in the main room and mutters a complaint I’m sure is meant for me to hear, but I can’t hear what he says over the deafening roar of Layla’s jet engine in my ear.

On another night, I might snap back to find out what he said, but I’m too tired, so I pull down the white bed sheets, take off my glasses, and climb into bed. 

They say you should never go to bed angry, and they’re right. My immense sleepiness during an argument subsides when we lay next to each other. I can’t stop fuming. I consider extending an olive branch and saying, “I don’t want to fight,” which can be the start of us coming back together, or it can re-ignite the argument when one of us only wants to be half-vulnerable. I’m only feeling half-vulnerable, so I steam in silence until sleep wins. 

The next morning, after some solid sleep even though I woke up in puddles of my own sweat and had to change my drenched shirt at 3:00am because apparently that’s what traveling is all about, I feel refreshed. I sit on the couch next to Sam, George on my lap watching Blippi on the iPad, and say, “I don’t want to fight.”  

I say it with full vulnerability, and the conflict resolves quickly. 

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Until next week,

Charlie