It was getting later in the day. We just finished at the beach and took a little bit of a longer ride back to the RV. The hills were a little steeper which caused Acacia some issue and as expected she had some things to say about it. We had a full day of friends and it was expected that she had gotten tired. We made it back though and the discussions turned to showers and that is where things went downhill, emotionally.
Somehow Braeden got in his head that he no longer liked the shower in the RV. He was not having a shower. The girls had quickly used the outside shower, however he was determined to not have a shower so he acted rashly by quickly messing up the shower with shampoo and toilet paper. This, of course, received a repramand which further escalated the emotions and caused him to decide that he was done with RVing and wanted to be back at home. However, after some alone time on his bunk he was able to bring himself in touch with reality again and ask for forgiveness for his attitude.
I tell this story, not as a way to point out his actions or this particular event, but more to highlight a struggle we all go through when we leave our “zone”. There is a subconcious level of emotion that is dealing with the fact that life has now changed. That things ARE different and that you have to find a new norm. These are the things that rise to the surface and become apparent in small ways.
One of those things is how we deal with tension. At home, we know how it would go. There is almost an expected result to rash actions. Yes, rash actions happen, yes we deal with them in the same way. Somehow these actions seem different when you are in a new enviroment.
“How is this ever going to work?” we ask. The truth is that we deal with the exact same things no matter where we are. We don’t suddenly become different people because we are in an RV. If anything our true nature surfaces a bit more. Add to this the fact that we are in a new enviroment and we are not sure on how to handle it. In our story Braeden began to troop from one end of the camper to the other to “get away from everyone”, but did not know where that place was. In the end it was his bunk, but it took him some time to figure it out. It was new, it was different and in reality this was not an experience that he has had before.
So what are we learning from this?
I suppose we are learning to grow. We are, hopefully, teaching our children to deal with situations that are outside of the norm.
As I write this I can hear another mother at the next campsite over going through a similar struggle. This is family in an RV, this is new and different and at times a struggle. But in the end I know that our family will be all the stronger for it.
