My 1993 Trip to the Caribbean

8 Days with Cherry

My memories of my cruise in the Caribbean have been vague for decades. I remembered that I had gone on a cruise in the Caribbean, I knew that I had gone with Cherry, and I could recall brief glimpses of events and places, but exactly when we went and which islands we visited seemed lost.

After finishing trip pages for 25 of the trips I had taken since moving to Denmark, I decided to look further back, to the trip I took to Europe, where I met Christine, whom I would marry. I also realized there was only one other trip that could merit a page. That long ago trip to the Caribbean.

Researching both these trips led me to dig out my old journals, hoping they could answer some of the where and when questions.

Pulling out old journals, it turns out, can really bring up a lot of old, sometimes uncomfortable, memories. Having read through my writings around much of our relationship, I can see why I may have wanted to forget. This was not Cherry’s fault, nor the locations we visited, nor the experiences we had.

It has more to do with the circumstances surrounding that vacation and, I suppose, my life leading up to it. At this stage, picture a flashback starting, although the production budget for this website won’t actually support much of a flashback, so I’ll just provide a summary.

I met Cherry in August, 1992, when we both attended a camping weekend with a number of mutual friends. The camping weekend started the day that I bought a house in New Hampshire. I signed the paperwork, picked up the keys to my empty home, and drove to the upstate New York camp site without moving in. I’d have a week for moving when I returned.

At the camp, Cherry and I felt attracted to one another quickly, and drove home together in my car for much of our return journey. We started dating and, just a month later, were planning on a vacation together for late November in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In early November, my company cancelled the project I was working on and gave those of us on the project one month to find a new job within the company, or we would be laid off. Simultaneously, they cancelled many other projects and a significant percentage of the work force got a similar deal. As they were the largest employer in the area, this meant a sudden flood of soon-to-be-unemployed software engineers both in the company and in the entire region.

I decided quickly that I needed to cancel my vacation plans with Cherry, and wrote in my journal that I was disappointed.

By mid-November, I had been interviewing for a number of different jobs and took one interview for a job within my company, but located in California. Given that I had just bought a house and I had this new relationship with Cherry, I did not take the job very seriously, but I figured the interview would be good practice.

I told Cherry about the interview and why I was not optimistic about it. A few days later, however, my project leader called to tell me he was considering joining that project in California, and he thought I should seriously consider it as well. This project leader was one of the people I respected most at that point, so his advice had a strong impact on me.

The following week, I agreed to fly to California for an introduction to the project and additional interviews. Cherry flew with me on a Thursday. At this stage, I saw the long weekend trip as a most-expenses-paid vacation to somewhat make up for our lost trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We enjoyed the weekend and she left on Sunday. On Monday visited the project. I discovered why my project leader was so impressed. Unexpectedly, I began to think that accepting the job in California might be the smartest career move after all. Poor Cherry had to experience my claiming no interest in the job when she left me on Sunday, to hearing that I might take it after all when we talked the following day.

This became my consuming dilemma for the coming months. Due to lots of complications with the company, including a hiring freeze that came after my project leader accepted a position with the project in California, but before I received an offer. This meant that while I continually heard assurances that I would receive an official offer “this week, next week latest”, I did not actually receive it until the end of March, five months after my initial interview.

Meanwhile, my company changed their mind about my original project and rejuvenated it, so that project team began actively attempting to convince me to stay.

This was a lot of stress, uncertainty, and indecision for me, and therefore, for Cherry as well. Cherry did her best to be supportive. She admitted that, if she got an offer from JPL Laboratories, she might decide to move herself, so she could understand my indecision. Meanwhile, she admitted both having stronger feelings for me than she had felt before, and feeling uncertain about the strength of my feelings for her.

Reading my journal entries about my feelings for her, honestly, hurts the most.

I could see that I did care about her, and that I was aware that my feelings for her were probably not strong enough to support a long term relationship. I felt terrible that I was willing to consider doing what was best for me, despite the consequences for her/us. I wrote endless pages attempting to decide and only discussed some of my thoughts with her. Doing what felt “right for me” felt logically appropriate and morally wrong.

In early January, I write:

Cherry & I made plans for a vacation today. It’s going to cost more than I had wanted to spend (close to, if not more than, $1000). Actually, we talked about plans. We didn’t make any. We’ll probably take a cruise between islands in the Caribbean. I’m looking forward to it already.

I’ve decided to start trying to follow the ideal of doing what I want to do (rather than what is “safe” or “right” or “smart”) and accepting the consequences. 

The following week, we made our definite plans and accepted what we considered a good package for an 8 day cruise.

As it happened, the Friday before the trip started, I finally made my final decision about the job in California. I told my boss in New Hampshire that, if and when I got an official job offer, I would accept it. The next day I packed and went to Cherry’s place in the evening. We were to get a limo to the airport early Sunday.

Looking back now, I can see how this was a difficult time to be heading out on a romantic vacation.

Given this background, you may be asking, why include a description of this trip at all?

I thought hard about that. I’ve come to the conclusion that these trip pages are mostly about giving myself the opportunity to remember my experiences. I want to see who I was. What I experienced. What I struggled with. In what ways, if any, have I grown since then?

If the experience was fun, that’s great, but if not, I still want to explore it. So below I show our vacation route and activities. I show the pictures I did take. I share the thoughts I recorded about each day.

This is a sad page for me, though I do have respect for the man I was, as flawed as I saw myself then and as much as I wish I could have treated Cherry better. I know I was truly doing my best. And I have compassion, respect, and appreciation for Cherry, who did her best to support me and to be true to herself at the same time.

Despite its melancholy start and circumstances, the trip was pleasant for us both and we managed to remain affectionate throughout and afterwards, though our relationship did end, as we both had feared, when my move to California came through.

All the descriptions below were actually written in my journal on the Monday after we returned home, as I wanted to record my memories from the trip while they were still fresh.