Nina In New York: What I Learned On My Child-Free Vacation

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

Why, hello world! You're looking well. Did you get a haircut? Did you lose weight? Something's different about you but I can't put my finger on—oh! I know what it is. I went on vacation. Yeah, that looks good on you.

No, we did not bring our toddler. I said vacation, not flushing money down a hotel toilet as I weep and dream of home. This was a break, for real. No kids, no pets, no cooking, no cleaning. You know, like how the movie stars do.

It was our first trip without the child, and I was nervous beforehand. Everyone told me she'd be fine with her grandparents. Everyone told me she'd behave for them even if she doesn't always for me. And when I said I'd miss her, they said, "it's okay if you don't, too." Well, they were right, and now I've got a few pearls of wisdom of my own. Which is nice, because I didn't get it together to buy any good souvenirs, like ones made of actual pearls. But here's what I brought home with me:

1. A deep and abiding and renewed love for vacation. Vacation = good. Why not do vacation more? Because money, right. Must experiment with whether similar results can be achieved with piña coladas in living room. Hypothesis: no.

2. Several randomly placed, obnoxiously painful stripes of sunburned skin. They are annoying, but they are the only physical evidence of my encounter with the Puerto Rican sun and so I treasure them.

3. Obligatory soul-searching questions about why I insist on tormenting myself by living in the Northeast where it's cold and covered in ice and snow and everything is grey and the sun is dead and everything dies and is dead and cold and terrible.

4. Reluctant understanding that if I permanently moved to an island, my hair would just never look good.

5. About 36 lost hours of sleep.

6. A few extra pork-and-rum-related pounds.

7. The strange realization that my brain has changed on a molecular level from having become a mother. It's not just that I missed my daughter, because I did. I wasn't pining for her, but I love her and spend every waking moment of my life with her, so you could say she's grown on me. So yes, there's that. But more than that, even 1600 hundred miles away from her and her toddler world, on a trip specifically designed to remove me from those aforementioned stressors, I still found myself seeing things through her eyes. How she would have loved to see the birds picking from the breakfast dishes, how she would have hated how friendly everyone was, how she would have loved the croquettas. I mean, I actually turned an excursion into an episode of Dora the Explorer. We drove up into the hills to visit some world-famous lechoneras (suckling pig purveyors), and I would up singing the vamanos song about heading to Pork Mountain to eat the three little piggies.* I sang Dora. I SANG DORA. On vacation! I hate Dora! She makes my head hurt and my eyes ache and my ears ring I'm pretty sure she's doing a half-decent job teaching my daughter Spanish but also simultaneously making grey matter leak out of her ear. To make matters worse, when when we were up on Pork Mountain, I saw a Dora balloon at a gift shop (spooky) and felt instinctively compelled to buy it until my husband made a face and shook his head in a way that made me wonder if perhaps I might require medication. So really, maybe it's not my kid who's changed my brain chemistry. Maybe it's that tweaked out, high pitched siren with her catchy tunes and her inexplicable lifestyle and her penchant for speaking at inhuman decibels. Damn you, Dora! I should have known she could reach me anywhere—I mean, the girl has a squirrel with a pilot's license on retainer. That's power.

*Note to Nick, Jr. execs: am willing to flesh out my episode idea. Can change "eat" to "rescue" if that plays better to your audience.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!