When we were little, the entire family on my mom's side went to my grandmother's beach house for the summer. I'm talking cousins, friends, parents, grandparents, boyfriends, girlfriends. On any given summer night there could be 40 people sleeping in this two bedroom, 800 square foot, yellow cabin on stilts.
Between the drinking, smoking, heat (no A/C), humidity, mosquitoes, and annoying young brats running around breaking things or ourselves, it never took long for some of the adults to get into a fight. These arguments usually ended with someone speeding off in their car (forgetting a spouse or child) and yelling out the window they'd never come back. Sounds kind of trashy. Maybe it was.
As we sat around on the porch one day trying to enjoy the smell of the ocean and hoping for a breeze from 10 rows back, my grandmother dryly asked "when's the fun gonna start?"
Speaking as the youngest grandchild in this family, it already had!
The cabin wasn't nice: one bathroom, hot as hell, smelled like smoke, crappy furniture, and don't even think about a TV. But there was never a dull moment; I loved it. I may not remember enough to give detailed accounts of anything that actually happened while there, other than going to the beach, eating, hanging out, and sleeping, but when I do recall that place in my memory, it's so so sweet. I still sleep the best on a mattress on the floor with the smell of salt in the warm air and the sound of rotating fans and creaky floors.
Years passed. People got divorced, grew up, stopped going, died. The cabin was even destroyed in a hurricane. Even the bathtub I used to play in in the yard was washed away. But for me the fun never had to start, every moment was magic. The waves. The food. The swearing. Sharing a twin bed with two other people. Trying to act like the cool older cousins but then ending up sitting in my mom's lap. Getting up at 5 in the morning to go crabbing and picking up pounds of shrimp off the shrimping boat on the way home - that's the best dinner anyone can ask for.
My Grandmother's saying caught on and the question is still asked by family members today when things turn into a mess. Road trips. Backpacking around europe. Drinking too much. Summer band. Cleaning up dog puke.
The bad is part of the fun, and later when you look back, it was the fun. The fun is right now, so you can't wait for it or you'll miss it :)
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