I just booked this sailing as a surprise for three of my best friends, plus my mom and my "other mom" (the mother of one of my best friends). It will be a bittersweet adventure for all of us as the sailing date will be on the one year anniversary of the date my darling husband, Brian, made his journey to heaven after a five-year battle with cancer.
I met two of my best friends in 1988. Last year, we celebrated 25 years of friendship. We had talked about taking a getaway trip to celebrate our "silver", but I was unable to do so after my husband's condition required more caregiving on my part.
The past few months have been tough, but I've been pulling through as well as I could have imagined. But, I've had a couple of emotional setbacks in the past few weeks combined with the winter blues. I decided last weekend that I just don't want to be at home when "that date" rolls around this year. I love to travel and took a lovely solo trip to California in December, which would have been our wedding anniversary, and found it to be a wonderful time of reflection and self-discovery.
But, because Brian and I were married at Disney World, I have been anxious at the thought of going back - if there were ever a "right time" to do so. I came up with a crazy little idea and started gathering information over the weekend. On Monday I called my
travel agent and surprised my travel party with a little
YouTube video.
We're going to fly down to Orlando on the 12th or the 13th and stay at Disney World, but not really do the parks or anything like that. And then, on the morning of the 14th, I'm going to get up early and hit the Magic Kingdom at rope drop. I'm going to face my fear of going back to our most special place and take a few moments to reflect and acknowledge my feelings. Before I leave, I'm going to buy a Mickey balloon and send it up to Brian from "our castle". (We did an "UP"-style balloon release as part of his celebration services, so it seems fitting.) It will be just a quick visit, 45 minutes or so, before the group heads out to the port.
I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but I think that Brian will be proud that I'm doing this. If I've learned nothing else through this experience, I know for sure that the years are short, true friends are a gift and tomorrow is not guaranteed.
I'm excited to see that there are some other ladies getaways on our same sailing. Maybe we'll see 'ya at the Quiet Cove or in the nightclubs!
For a second I was thinking I'd be alone on this cruise. 
