Go Slow

The unofficial motto of Caye Caulker, this little phrase was to hound me most of last week. I mean, I don't mind relaxing and taking things at an easy pace, but Dad seemed to adopt "Go Slow" as his personal philosophy. And while Mum would get annoyed at him sometimes for this (usually when we were going to dinner with our soon-to-be in-laws, and she wanted to make a good impression), she too was quite willing to do very little.

What do I mean by very little? Well, their idea of a good day was to eat breakfast, watch some World Cup Football, eat lunch, watch the second football game, maybe go for a swim, have a nap, have dinner, then retire to bed. And while I too enjoy reading and eating and swimming, I just can't stand doing that much nothing in one day. I love Caye Caulker and the free bikes from our B&B, not only because they were cool, but because they provided me with an escape, a release, a way to expend some energy without having to wait half an hour for my parents' to get ready.

As always, this isn't as one-sided a debate as I'm making it out to be. Mum and Dad didn't always go as slow as the culture would have advised, and we all agreed that slow service on food was not our most favourite part of the "Go Slow" mentality (especially on our flight back, when the airport restaurant took 45 minutes to provide Mum with scrambled eggs and toast). Also, we did occasionally do things -- our trip to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai saw us all get up at 5:30 in the morning and not get back until 4 in the afternoon. Mum and Dad both went kayaking with me, and enjoyed it greatly. And there were many moments (during air travel and with meals, most notably) when I could sink comfortably back into the role of a happy child who is confident in the knowledge that her parent's will take care of the details.

But this trip has taught me something that I didn't particularly want to know -- my parents are rapidly becoming old. I mean, I'd seen the signs before; they are getting more set in their ways, less willing to do crazy things, more likely to have naps in the afternoons and more often they mishear what I'm saying. But this trip just threw all those tendancies into sharp relief, making it abundantly clear to me that the road we're all on is one where I increasingly take responsibility, where I increasingly am the person who takes care of them. I don't like this. I don't like knowing that my life, not action-packed by any means, is great leaps and bounds more active than theirs is. I don't like knowing that for them, "Go Slow" is rapidly becoming less of a suggestion and more of a necessity.