Hi friend.
I was eleven the first time my family went on a cruise.
My parents had been going as a couple for years. Then one year, finally, all of us got to go. Mom, Dad, my brothers Chris and Matt, me, and my grandmother, Adele.
Mom and Dad had their own room. The four of us crammed into one across the hall.
Those cruises became the bookends of my childhood. The thing the whole year pointed toward, and the thing remembered the whole year after. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I think about them almost every single day.
I remember the shopping trip before each one — picking out the dress. I remember the food. I remember hours in the water, on the beach, sun on my skin, not one single care in the world.
That specific kind of joy a kid feels in the weeks before something they love. The counting-down kind.
So this year, when my parents asked us to come along — Chris, my sister-in-law Sarah, Mom and Dad were already booked — something in me lit up.
I looked for a room. Sold out.
And I sat with that for about four seconds before I thought: there has to be a way.
I searched. I dug. I found a room. We booked.
Here's what I keep coming back to.
I travel a lot, and I am grateful I get to. But this trip feels different, and I can feel it in my gut — joy, excitement, gratitude, and this big wave of compassion I don't entirely have words for.
I think it comes down to this: I don't take time for granted anymore.
The people I love most are not promised to me forever. The version of my parents who can still climb onto a boat and laugh with me at dinner… that version exists right now. Not in some imagined later. Now.
So I keep trying to do a better job of actually using the time. Saying yes to the trip. Finding the room when the room is sold out.
I'll be sending love from the sea this week, with updates along the way.
And let's be honest — we are a medical family. By day two I will almost certainly be running an unofficial Family Reset on the lido deck, because someone will want to dissect the science of literally everything, and I will not be able to help myself. Ha.
Have a beautiful week. Go find your room.
With so much love, Ali