Surviving Narcissism Exploring life after marriage to a narcissist. Learning and thriving by sharing our story. – Jesse Blayne

When I tuck Will in at night, he wants to know how many pages he should read before he turns out the light.  He wants to know the plan for the next day.  He wants to know if he will be allowed a cup of coffee.  He wants to know what we’ll be doing for learning work, if he’ll have time to golf,  and what we’ll be having for dinner.  (I should clarify that he doesn’t need any kind of approval from me on all these things – pages read, golf time.  But some things like coffee and dinner and learning work, he does need to hear from me.)  When I tuck Jenny in,  she is busily putting jammies on her Barbies and barely makes eye contact long enough to say goodnight.

On a spectrum that has “Go with the flow” on one end, and “Make a plan” on the other, my kids anchor the two ends, and I float some where in the middle.

None of our positions is perfect.  But it is my continual pursuit of harmony in the home that makes me try to get us all to live together while acknowledging where we are on that spectrum.  We often remind Will that sometimes the best things happen when you ‘play it by ear’.  And we are often working with Jenny on her time management.  If left to her own devices, she’d never make an appointment on time because she gets wrapped up in a project and can’t drag herself away.

When planning this cruise, I checked into all the different excursions.  The ages of the kids bumped us out of most of them.  I figured this was our first cruise together and we would get the feel for how things work, and not make specific plans for the port days.  The night before Cabo, Will wanted to know what to expect.  I told him we would get up, have breakfast, play mini golf and ping pong, shop for a souvenir, have lunch and get off the boat and explore Cabo.   I left the ‘explore Cabo’ part wide open on purpose.  That was enough of a plan to let him relax and let the day unfold.  It wasn’t so much of a plan to make Jenny feel rushed or like she couldn’t just hang.  And anyway, I didn’t have the foggiest idea of what we might do in Cabo.

The morning we pulled into Cabo San Lucas was warm and sunny and full of promise.  Will needed to know what that promise would be.  Jenny didn’t care so long as it was going to be fun.  It was up to me to present an option that would please all parties.

After getting off the boat, we began walking through the lines of vendors selling water taxi rides, Mexican bracelets, para-sailing trips, and snorkeling adventures.  Will wanted to do all.  Jenny didn’t care.  I just kept smiling at the vendors and saying, “No, thank you.”  We were lazily walking along a bunch of docks, looking at the boats and the fish eating off the rocks.  The kids had a blast looking at the different  fish, trying to guess what they were.

At one point, another passenger from the cruise came by, he saw the fish that Will was pointing at and said, “That’s a puffer!”  The kids couldn’t believe their luck.  Then Will pointed at this long, needle-nosed thing and stopped another cruise passenger and said, “Hey, do you know what that fish is?”  She didn’t have a clue either, but had fun coming up with suggestions.

I remember thinking, if this is all we do in Cabo – walk along looking at fish, conversing with others about fish – it’ll be fine.

Just then, another vendor came up to me and said, “Water taxi, ma’am?”  I don’t know what changed.  I don’t know why I said, “No, thank you” to the previous 17 water taxi vendors, but to this fellow I said, “How does this work?”

He pulled out his map and pointed at two destinations.  He told me the remote beach included stops at picturesque views of the sea lions, rock formations and secluded swimming holes.  The other resort beach was closer, but didn’t include the scenic stops because they weren’t on the way.  I chose the resort beach, because I could see how we could walk back if something happened, and he didn’t come back to get us.

I asked how much.

He said $20 round trip.  For all three of us.  And he’d come back to get us whenever we wanted.

No brainer.

We got into a brand new boat with his associate named, Pablo.  It was just the three of us.  Pablo took an immediate liking to Jenny and Will right after seeing Will holding up his two fingers behind Jenny’s head, while I was taking a picture of them.  Pablo offered to take pictures of the three of us.  And then he proceeded to drive us through the scenic stuff, even though it wasn’t on the way to the resort beach.  He pointed out a rock formation that looked like Scooby Doo, drove us close enough to the sea lions that we had to plug our noses, and slowed down nicely so we could take photos of the beautiful, secluded sandy beaches.

He let us out at the resort beach, and said he’d be back in three hours.

We played in the surf and the sand.

Jen and Will smiled and laughed so hard I thought their faces might split in half.  They buried each other in the sand, chased each other in and out of the waves.  Will drank a gallon of sea water before he decided it didn’t taste that great.  Jenny was a great sport about letting her brother ‘save’ her when she got out too far.

It was hot, and sandy and magical and just the escape we needed.

And then…  I started to make a backup plan in case Pablo didn’t come back for us.  I saw plenty of other taxi boats, and was prepared to pay another $20 to get us back to the cruise ship, if need be.

We headed over to where we agreed to meet Pablo.  I kept watching for his new white cruiser-style boat.  It wouldn’t be hard to miss amongst all the well-used water taxis.  I was starting to get a little nervous.  I was looking at who I should approach about getting a ride back.  The kids didn’t notice that I was looking at other options.

Just then I saw a fellow waving at me.  It was Pablo.  He was in a different boat.  It wasn’t the new white boat.

It was a glass-bottomed boat.

He came back with a different boat because he thought the kids would enjoy the view.

I tipped him $10 bucks.

We got all that  magic for $30 bucks – without a plan.

On the way back to the cruise ship, I read the signs that said, “Glass-Bottomed Boat Rides – $40 per person.”