(Sacred Ordinary – May 2026)
I spent the week in Orlando surrounded by what the world calls luxury.
A resort with turquoise water so bright it looked fake.
A “pool” so enormous they ran boats through the middle of it; actual boats, on a pool, because apparently swimming itself is no longer enough.
Chauffeur texts that began with “Greetings…” like I was on my way to a royal summit instead of a clinical research meeting.
There was boxed water.
Seventy-six-dollar shampoo.
Fifteen dollar Oreos.
A sunscreen machine that looked like it belonged in a car wash.
And yet somehow, the thing I missed most was my dusty fan from 2018 and a cup of coffee from my old Mr. Coffee maker.
Because here’s the thing nobody tells you:
Luxury is often just ordinary things wrapped in prettier packaging and sold back to you at ten times the price.
The hotel room was beautiful, yes.
But it wasn’t comfortable.
The air barely moved.
The coffee machine produced three tablespoons of espresso-flavored confusion.
The furniture looked stunning but felt like sitting inside a design catalog instead of a real life.
Meanwhile, back home, my old fan can freeze a room like an industrial meat locker while sounding like a jet engine preparing for takeoff and honestly? I sleep better there than anywhere on earth.
At one point I found myself laughing because the “luxury” Yukon chauffeur service definitely had a transmission shudder. I could feel it from the passenger seat. Growing up with a dad who sold used cars taught me a valuable lesson:
Shiny doesn’t always mean dependable.
And maybe that’s why none of it impressed me the way it was probably supposed to.
Don’t get me wrong , Disney was magic.
Jennifer and I laughed until we cried.
We walked miles, rode rides, ate chicken sandwiches and fries that were somehow the best food I had all week, and made memories I’ll never forget.
But the best part of the entire trip happened at almost midnight, after a two-hour delay in Baltimore because our plane needed a seatbelt repaired.
By the time I finally made it to Greenville, I was sore, exhausted, emotionally wrung out, and more than ready to be home.
And there they were.
Billy, Dylan, and Lillian had driven through the dark to come get me, not in some luxury SUV with a chauffeur text that began with “Greetings,” but in my own car, waiting patiently after hours of delays just to bring me home.
No curated experience.
No imported bottled water.
No luxury branding.
Just my people.
Honestly, that felt richer than the entire resort.
And this morning, while the fancy hotel coffee maker was just a distant traumatic memory, Billy handed me a cup of real coffee in my regular mug while my old fan blasted cold air across the room.
That was the moment I finally realized:
luxury isn’t what they think it is.
Maybe I’ll always be the woman who trusts a loud old hotel AC unit over a silent climate-controlled room.
The woman who thinks VO5 works just fine.
The woman who would rather spend money making memories than pretending boxed water tastes different.
But honestly?
I think that’s okay.
Because somewhere between the sunscreen machine and the $15 Oreos, I realized something:
I don’t actually want a curated life.
I want a real one.
And I already have it. 🌿
