Pondering an AF Anniversary Vacation

Last night, in a New Year's fit of overachieving productivity, my husband and I sat down and looked at our calendar for 2019 to schedule some house projects and travel. This September we will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, and we are determined to ditch our kids for a week. Our previous record since starting a family seven years ago is two nights away, maybe three, so this is a biggie for us. I clicked to September 2019 in my Google Calendar and saw that I had already blocked out the week of our anniversary with "NAPA!!!!"I remember doing this. I can't remember exactly when it was. Probably a couple of years ago. My husband and I were talking about how, for our tenth anniversary, we would do a real vacation somewhere fabulous and far away. I have been to Napa twice: once for a wedding at a venue just on the edge of the region (read: not Napa prop-a), and once to do the wine train with my husband and his aunt and uncle... whilst 13 weeks pregnant. Both were day trips. So while I have been to Napa, I have never really experienced Napa (read: touring vineyards and drinking my face off).When my husband and I had that initial tenth anniversary conversation, going to Napa seemed to be the perfect way to celebrate. Wine! Romance! Beautiful scenery! More wine! We both agreed, and I put it in the calendar.When I saw it there last night, I deleted it, instantly and instinctively. Because going to a wine region is no longer the perfect way for me to celebrate anything.We talked about Europe. Portugal? France? But those don't feel right anymore either. A couple travels to Portugal to drink port, and France, like Napa, to drink wine. I don't know if I will be drinking again in September 2019 - my one year is up this July 4 - but whatever my status, I know I will not feel comfortable basing a romantic trip around a location famed for its booze.I felt - still feel, kind of - guilty about this. On a world map, I now see big red X's across some of the world's most spectacular regions. By not drinking I am limiting the possibilities of travel that my husband and I can do. And we love to travel. We have a long, long list of places we want to see in our lifetime together. But now that list is littered with asterisks: *only if Jen is drinking.My husband is a take-it-or-leave-it drinker. I am a take-it-and-drink-it-and-drink-some-more drinker. If I decide to remain alcohol-free, it's unfair to him that my choice to not drink will interfere with our mutual desire to travel together to beautiful places all over the world. Places we both want to see and experience together, and where we would want to be all romantical and stuff. A bunch of them are marred by big red X's now. And it's my fault.This self-inflicted guilt hit me like a punch in the face. And it hurt."Well," my kind and supportive husband said, "we can just turn trips to places like Portugal and France into family trips."Family trips: where my not-drinking would be a virtue, not a vibe-crushing bummer. Look, kids, Mama doesn't need to drink wine in Bordeaux to have fun! I guess that could work.This morning I still felt like a foreseeable future buzzkill. Reflecting further upon last night's conversation, I realized that I needed to do a little mental pivot. Instead of this: "We can't go to Napa because Jen can't drink or else she'll plummet back into her gray-area soul-sucking watering hole," let's try this: "We aren't going to Napa because Jen doesn't like wine."I mean, I feel fine saying that I don't want to go to Aspen because I don't like to ski, and that Malaysia is not at the top of my travel list because I don't like extreme humidity. So what if a few of the world's most beautiful places just dropped down past Malaysia on my travel list. There are a lot of other spectacular spots on this planet that are notable for things other than alcohol. We'll just prioritize those instead.We still haven't decided where we want to go. The space held on the calendar for "NAPA!!!!" is now simply "Anniversary Trip." But when we do choose a destination, I'll once again break out the all-caps and exclamation points. This time, with pride that my husband and I found a romantic place that also compliments my healthy lifestyle.