I dreaded going on a month-long trip with my mother. But after some fights, the trip helped us form a stronger bond.

11.05.2024 - 12:37 / insider.com

Take it!" shouted my mother, throwing me her backpack. "We can use the rope inside to get to shore."

We'd been exploring the Brough of Birsay, an island in Scotland, but we'd left too late; high tide had arrived. The 2,000-foot-long stretch of pavement that separated us from the mainland was now underwater. To boot, eddies and currents had formed around our ankles, threatening to sweep us off our feet. Would we make it to shore? Would I have to save both of us?

To make matters worse, my mom had started saying things like, "Well, this is it!" and "I didn't even get to finish watching 'A Discovery of Witches!'" In response, I began dictating my will.

Luckily, we made it to higher ground. A small group of geologists even gathered at the shore to wonder why my mom and I were loudly preparing for the afterlife just because our shoes were underwater.

However, the barely-near-death-experience still wasn't the fantasy that I had envisioned when my mom had invited me on a month-long excursion in the UK.

When my mom had initially invited me to "visit stone circles in the UK," I had misunderstood this as "taking a selfie at Stonehenge." To my confusion and horror, however, she instead wanted to visit obscure stone circles that no one had heard of — circles with names like "Waun Mawn" that were in random people's backyards. Essentially, she wanted to connect with her ancient ancestry while taking many pictures of plants since she is a botanist. Oh, and she wanted me to do all the driving.

I was a bit nervous at the thought. Even when my mom and I were in good moods, we had a unique ability to drive each other insane. A month was a long time. I worried we'd fight about me being queer or my career choices — frequent subjects of conflict for us.

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I also worried about my general anxiety or my mom's persistent fear that I would get us into a car wreck every time I drove her anywhere. But still, we were close overall — and what was the worst that could happen?

So, I decided to go along. After all, I planned just to pretend that the car had broken down anytime we were in a fun city like Edinburgh.

First, there was the whole "driving on the left side of the road" thing. Add to that the UK's distressing amount of one-car-wide (but somehow two-way) roads. Oh, and I had a passenger who loved white-knuckling the grab handle and shrieking dramatically every time I went over 35. At one point, I had to contend with all the above, but at night and in the middle of a rainstorm — and while descending Scotland's largest mountain. Moreover, owls were flying at us in what appeared to be a coordinated attack. We screamed for three hours straight.

Then there were the stone circles. Of course, there were many fun