Spaghetti and Struggles

Tonight, we attempted a nice family dinner.

You know the kind.

The one where everyone gets dressed up to have a nice family meal, and it ends before the drinks are even ordered.

I won't get into the details, but let's just say our nice family dinner ended much earlier than anticipated.

There was embarrassment.

There was frustration.

There was the car ride home where every parent suddenly starts saying things their own parents said to them.

"We can't take you ANYWHERE."

"Do you know how embarrassing that was?"

And the classic:

"We were trying to do something NICE."

Ahhh. We've become our parents.

By the time we got home, I had reached my maximum capacity for family togetherness, so I went and took a little ride.

Just for an hour.

I went to my friend's house, decompressed, laughed, complained, stared into the distance a little bit, and eventually decided I was emotionally prepared to return to my family.

I think it's really important to know your limits and have boundaries, and to know when it's time to give yourself a little time out.

When I got home, we all sat down and talked.

Nobody was particularly thrilled about it, but we talked about what happened, what could have gone differently, and how tomorrow we get to try again.

And then my husband did what any wise man would do after a family evening had completely gone off the rails.

He made spaghetti.

Nothing fancy.

No nice restaurant.

No cute family dinner.

Just spaghetti at home served in paper bowls after a really crappy night.

And somehow, it was exactly what we needed.

I think sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to create these beautiful family memories. The dinners. The outings. The holidays. The pictures where everyone looks happy and nobody appears to have screamed in the car ten minutes earlier.

But real family life isn't always very Instagrammable.

Sometimes you spend money on a nice dinner just to leave almost immediately. Sometimes the kids act like they've never been introduced to civilization.

Sometimes a parent/step parent/guardian needs to remove herself from the premises before she says something that will be quoted in therapy someday. 🤣

Sometimes Dad makes spaghetti.

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And sometimes you all sit back down at the table after the disaster and try again.

Maybe that's the part worth remembering.

Not that we had a bad night.

But that we came home.

We cooled off.

We talked.

We ate spaghetti.

And tomorrow we'll probably attempt another wholesome family activity because apparently we never learn.

Here's to spaghetti, second chances, and all of us just trying our best to raise decent humans without completely losing our minds. And cheers to good friends that you can call at the drop of a hat to trauma dump and unload 🤣

Taylor Since '96