I lived in Puerto Rico for several years in the mid-1980s during grade school and college. My father moved our family from New York when he retired. I was about 11 years old at the time, and even then, I knew Puerto Rico would not be my final destination. I couldn’t wait to get back to the States. At 20, degree in hand, I moved to Florida, lived there for several years, and eventually settled in Colorado. I’ve been away from the lush Caribbean island for nearly 28 years.
I visit my family in Puerto Rico every year. I’m the only one who left; my mother, brother, and sister still live there.
Each visit feels like stepping back in time. Not much has changed, except for more obnoxious drivers, overly stressed and underpaid locals, and a few more wrinkles in the house I grew up in. My mother has done a remarkable job maintaining the property since my father passed five years ago, but staying there for a few days is always… challenging.
This year, our trip got off to a rough start. As I approached the porch to hug my mother, her car, parked near the neighbor’s fence, was stuck by another vehicle. My sister had borrowed the car to pick up my husband and me from the airport. I couldn’t believe it. My mother handled it calmly, but I felt horrible. After the police dealt with the accident, we finally settled in but I went to bed exhausted, wondering if this was a sign of what was to come.
And it was.
Rain plagued us almost the entire trip, except for the last day. We had only five days and had been dreaming of sunny beach days. On the one day we attempted a beach walk, the heavens opened.
The house itself is a throwback to my teenage years: tiny bedrooms filled with oversized furniture, making bruised shins inevitable. “The Chicken Man,” our noisy neighbor whose yard is overrun with clucking chickens and roosters, blares music outside until 11:30 p.m., followed by a symphony of roosters starting at midnight. Sleep? Forget it.
Then there’s the bathroom. The small, decades-old space hasn’t been updated. The toilet flushes so slowly, you practically have to wait to see if it works. My mother has a motion-activated air freshener perched precariously above the toilet. My six-foot-tall husband triggers it every time, leaving him drenched in a fruity mist. Each exit from the bathroom smells like he’s tried on a new cologne.
The shower is an adventure all its own. An inline water heater warms only a single temperature, which is fine for most locals but torture for a Puerto Rican raised on hot showers like me. Washing my hair became a strategic challenge. Shoulder-length, curly hair meant I had to jump between scattered droplets just to rinse properly. By the third day, I gave up and wore a ponytail for the rest of the trip.
The towels? Paper-thin. You practically need one for each limb.
This year, the water was shut down for days. Our choices were a bucket bath using water heated on the stove or a freezing cold shower at my sister’s house, mid-remodel. We chose the cold option, almost ended up with pneumonia.
Despite the chaos, I love visiting my mother and family. She’s the most giving and hospitable person I know. But next year? We may just book a hotel. My husband, bless him, laughs it off, but I can only imagine how much worse it must be for him as an outsider.
After a week of little sleep, stressful mishaps, and questionable showers, we returned home. The first thing I did? Took the longest, hottest shower of my life. Heaven.
