Bitter? Moi?

Do you ever have an issue from your childhood? One that you thought you had long since put away for good, right up until it comes up and smacks you in the face? It turns out that pretty much the entire state of New Hampshire is that issue for me.

When I was growing up, we took two trips to Disney World, one when I was five and the other the summer before I started junior high. Every other vacation we ever took as a family was either camping locally and taking day trips around southern New England or going to the White Mountains. There was never any deviation. Now I know I have a reputation for exaggerating, so let me clarify. When I say never, I don’t mean mostly never. I don’t mean occasionally. I mean really for truly never.

My parents love New Hampshire. And they love to mountain climb. As far as they were concerned the highlight of the trip was spending at least a few different days hiking up a mountain somewhere, looking at the view from the top, and coming back down. I’m sure there are kids out there for whom that’s a dream vacation. But I was not that kid. I was chubby, unathletic, and bookish. And I hated climbing those mountains.

I mostly liked going to New Hampshire. What kid doesn’t love vacation? We would camp right on the river, and ride the current on our SuperTubes. After my sister was too old to come with us, and before my niece and nephew started coming, there were a few years when I was allowed to bring a friend. There were theme parks and outlet shopping, and it was the one time of year my mother let me eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. When I look back on these vacations, there’s a lot of nostalgia, a lot of happy memories. But what I remember most vividly is the abject misery. Being yelled at by my father once I was a teenager and could do nothing right, being dragged along on outings that I absolutely loathed, huffing and puffing and hiking my fat little adolescent body up mountain after mountain. My parents still do these vacations, and they were trying to remember which one was the last I came on. My dad made the mistake of asking me.

“It was the summer after college. The year I had an anxiety attack in the middle of the mountain and you all kept going and left me there. I’m still bitter.” And you know what? I really am. That week was the single worst vacation of my life. I was 2 months out of college, living back at home and working a horrible data-entry job until I got up the nerve to start looking for jobs in New York. Even though I was working full time, my dad was furious that I wasn’t using my degree, and he was absolutely terrible to me. While he and I had always butted heads, that summer was the only time before or since he’s ever been deliberately mean. I’d be talking, and he’d talk over me like I wasn’t there. Once I called him on it, he stopped. From then on, if I was speaking he’d just walk out of the room. My sister and her family were on this same vacation, and I didn’t get to pick anything we did, anywhere we went, or anything we ate the entire trip. My father made me pay my own way when we did things to make a point. Every time I was alone, I just cried and cried. I cried in bathrooms. I cried in bed. I cried in stores when my family were in different aisles. My only request the entire week was that we go out one night for seafood for dinner. On the last night of the trip, my parents and I went out just the three of us. I was so excited that we were finally going to do something I wanted to. And then my father pulled into a barbecue restaurant. I was 22 years old, and I sobbed through the entire meal. It’s ten years later, and I have tears rolling down my face as I write this. I have never felt so unimportant and insignificant in my life. And until last week, I never went back to New Hampshire again.

I wish I could say that going back as an adult made all the old hurt go away, but that would clearly be a lie. I’m not sure if I even realized how much hurt there was until it all came back again. But it was wonderful to go there on my own terms. To know that unless I choose to, I will never have to climb another mountain. To drive by all those places we used to go and appreciate the happy memories, remember the fun times.

More than anything else I wish I could go back in time and see that 22-year-old, to let her know that she’s going to be okay. That she’s going to do it in her own time and her own way, but in a few months she’s going to make that move to New York, to take her dream job. That her father is wrong about her, and some day he’ll see it. That it’ll take years but eventually he’s going to treat her with respect, and they’ll have a great relationship. That she’s going to be strong and independent and happier than she can even dream at this age. She’s going to be more than okay; she’s going to be great.