No matter how hard I try, my life just can’t be normal.

Sometimes it fools me for awhile. I start to have foolish ambitions of being the cool kid who actually has things together and enjoys a nice, boring, normal life where crazy, random things don’t happen on a regular basis.

Despite a plethora of outrageous wedding-planning stories you wouldn’t believe if I told you, for some reason I naively believed my honeymoon to tropical paradise would go smoothly and without bizarre incident.

Ha! Right.

In case you missed the universe-shattering big event and have been wondering at my online absence (and perhaps speculating that I was sucked down the toilet into the Ministry of Magic), I tied the knot April 8th to my fabulous dancer man.

We danced off into the sunset to the classic strains of Sinatra, and promptly hopped on a plane for a restful week at a Sandals resort in Jamaica, thanks to a rockin’ awesome deal. (Let’s be real. I’m a full-time creative businesswomen. Your edits and consults buy my groceries. Thanks for that, by the way.)

Night 1. We stuffed ourselves (not for the last time) with all-you-can-eat sushi. So far, so good. Day 1. We see Soca dance lessons on the activities list for the day. I took the rare opportunity to do something dance-related where my husband didn’t have a distinct advantage.

We jumped into the class. Learned some new moves. And apparently impressed the teachers, who dragged us into a dance-off to win extra points toward a souvenir (which we ended up getting, though not in the way they intended). We swept away the competition with a combo of swing and Soca dance moves, ending with me backflipping dramatically over my husband’s arm.

Sweet, right? And yes. We did win the dance off.

Unfortunately, I also came down wrong on the concrete floor and severely jammed/sprained my ankle and little toe. Within an hour it had swelled and began to turn purple. I spent the rest of the week alternating hopping/limping around the resort and sitting in random places with my foot propped up and covered in ice.

Not exactly the sexy swinging walk I had in mind for my honeymoon!

The plot thickens thicker.

While disembarking the sight-seeing boat part-way through the week, ourselves (and our bag) were swamped by a rogue wave. Upon opening the bag, we discovered our bottle of after-sun lotion had leaked all over the bag.

We’re not sure if it was the lotion or wave that did it, but my phone refused to turn on. Consternation abounded. We called our friendly concierge and requested rice. (Yes, the trick of letting your swamped phone sit overnight in rice does actually work). No, not cooked rice. Uncooked rice. Our confused concierge (who was probably already puzzled at the volume of ice we consumed) replied he couldn’t get any for us.

A bottle of $60 Jamaican rum? Yes. Any mixed drink under the sun? Yes. Uncooked rice? No.

What’s the point of all this? I wondered the same thing myself at the time. Certainly, things didn’t go exactly like I’d planned. But then my husband had a very insightful conversation with our resort shuttle bus driver, who spent all morning with people complaining about the light rain earlier in the day.

“That’s the problem with these people,” the driver said. “They’re in Jamaica, man! But they’re not alive! Yeah, man.” 

Isn’t that the truth? These people were on vacation with the people dearest to them in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, with unlimited delicious food and friendly people to serve their every whim, and they’re whining about a little rain?

Life isn’t always sunshine and roses, even in paradise. Sometimes there’s a little ice and rice in paradise, too. And that’s okay. The key is to not let it steal your joy in the moment. 

Life isn’t always sunshine and roses, even in paradise. Sometimes there’s a little ice and rice in paradise, too. And that’s okay. The key is to not let it steal your joy in the moment.

We could have let a little stormy weather, a ruined phone and a very sore, purple foot ruin our wonderful week together in paradise. But we didn’t. Instead, we embraced the beauty around us, acknowledged and set aside the obstacles threatening to suck away our joy, and lived life alive.

Because, after all, life is short and worth living to the fullest. Even in paradise. Especially in paradise. Yeah, man. 

Photo credit (unless otherwise noted) to Sandals Resorts.