In 2 days, PJ and I will be married for 17 YEARS!!

17 years ago when we were young and too cool, I was the type of person who vowed that when I had kids, we would never be “Disney People”. I don’t really need to explain this, right? We all know who “Disney People” are, right? I wasn’t going to be that. We weren’t going to be that.

Even before PJ, when going to the mall with my friends, I’d groan when they’d want to go into the Disney Store.

And even before that, when my parents took Teara and me to “The happiest place on Earth”, I wasn’t exactly the happiest person on Earth.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s my oppositional defiance. Maybe it was the hippie in me thinking, “Everything’s so fake and commercial, mannn…”

And yet here I am… lying in a hotel bed 10 minutes from The Magic Kingdom. PJ’s alarm just went off at 6am so he could make all the necessary reservations for “Genie passes” and shit like that.

This is how we chose to spend our 17th wedding anniversary. Pulling the kids out of school like bad parents, driving for 8 hours straight, waiting to sweat our asses off in the park today, then going on our FOURTH Disney Cruise tomorrow.

We don’t even know if the kids will like Disney World. We live 30 minutes from Carowinds and have never been there. PJ and I just agreed that it’s something every kid should experience once in their lives, whether they end up loving it, or act like a little punk-ass like I did.

I was about 14, I think. We drove down in our little Toyota Tercel. Lol, as always, lied and said the radio was broken. I, as always, was boy crazy and couldn’t believe they were taking me away from whichever boy I had a crush on at that point.

We were old enough to split up from my parents, so at Universal Studios, me and Teara walked around like, “Ugh, this is so boring 🙄🙄🙄🙄”, “Ugh this weather is making my hair so frizzy 🙄🙄🙄🙄”, “ “Ugh there are NO hot guys here!!! 🙄🙄🙄🙄”

When we met up with our parents, it was as if the roles were reversed and they were the kids telling us all the fun things they did. We didn’t even know we could do any of it because we were too cool to actually look for things and literally just walked around complaining.

I’m surprised my parents didn’t line us up and punch me and Teara continuously in the face for acting like 2 ingrates. I would have.

Fast forward 30+ years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if PJ and I are like the kids and my boys are the whiny complainers.

Even with the fast passes or whatever PJ probably just spent an astronomical amount of money on, the kids today are so used to immediate everything, that I’m sure they will be dyinggg over a 15 minute wait.

Meanwhile, 30+ years ago, Pa and I waited 2 HOURS for 30 seconds of Space Mountain!! (Thanks Pa ♥️)

I love the cruise. Not because of the characters – obviously I don’t care about any of that. (Which is weird because Micky Mouse and I have the same birthday – something I bragged about all my life until I realized no one gave a shit). I love the cruise because there’s no comparison to that Disney service. Being in marketing all my adult life, I’ve heard over and over again that it’s the gold standard in service snd other companies try to model themselves after that. You know what that means? It IS CLEAN. That is my top priority.

My OCD is off the charts when I’m on vacation. I keep my Xanax with me at all times in case I see a stray hair on my bed or in the shower 🤢

Right now, normal people would be luxuriating in their hotel room. Me, I’m an uptight ball of stress. I was never like this until I had kids. I blame watching 20/20 and all the deep dive reporting into hotels using black lights 🤢

But on the Disney cruise, it’s so damn clean my anxiety takes a major plummet. I know I’m weird, leave me alone.

I can’t wait to see what the day holds for us. My youngest is already upset because the weather report is calling for rain. I secretly hope it will rain a little because it’s like 90 degrees and hot as balls.

So here I am. A Disney Person.

Never say never, people. NEVER say never.