Day 4 – it’s all relative

It’s day #3 of the 2012 Hollander-Rosen family vaca at the Terra Bella yoga retreat in Glen Ellen, CA.  After a long day of hiking, eating, driving and exploring (where is the yoga??) I am sitting in our room with the pup realizing how lucky I am to have such a cool family.

It’s funny to think about that - “cool family” - those words would have never come out of my mouth say 14-15 years ago.  Back in the day I couldn’t stand to be around my parents (what teenager can?).  I wanted nothing to do with them and thought they were the strangest people on the planet.  I just wanted a “normal” family with parents that let me do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, and gave me money to do it (isn’t that what every teenager wants? No? just me. ok then…)  I definitely swore on many occasions that I would be nothing like them.  And yet I realize, more and more, how much I truly am. And I’m grateful for that.  I am a better person for it.  Sure they have their flaws, their idiosyncrasies, and there will always be those little things that irk me, but in the end they are awesome!  Turning 30 has taught me a lot about acceptance – I am learning to love those things that used to drive me nuts.  After all, as my mother in-law so beautifully said today:  Normal is relative, and my relatives aren't normal.  What is normal anyways?

On a side note – today I got carded at a winery.  The women did not believe I was the older sibling (by nearly 5 years) and was shocked when she saw that my birth date was in 1982.  Yep, 30 ain’t so bad.