5. The world is bigger on the Open Road...
There's no place like home. It's true, but as much as home is safety, security, family and friends - it tends to be a small place where it's easy to focus on my own life, and it's ups and downs...it's a place where wondering what exactly I'm going to do come September, can be overwhelming.
But, packing the car to the brim, loading the kids up with Gravol, DVD's, and dinner of champions - pretzels and popcorn, and driving into the sunset lets me leave home behind, just for a little while. It's easy to forget the future and live right now when the blue mountains are edging over the horizon.
4. Where the heck are we?
In our excitement to get away, we forgot to check which hotel we would be spending the night in, when we reached Hinton. After a great deal of debate, we had to track down some open wifi before we were able to get ourselves settled in the Hotel we'd booked for the night.
It wasn't the hotel I thought I'd booked. Lakeview Inn and Suites in Hinton has this awesome continental breakfast that is more like a real breakfast than a continental one. We accidentally booked at Days Inn, where they had a more typical continental breakfast, however, when I looked into the fridge at some of the available options I actually did not recognize the item that was supposed to be "breakfast sausage."
But overall, it turned out to be a nice stay. It wasn't what we were expecting, or what we were looking forward to, but it turned out to be alright. It's sort of what I am thinking for this time in my life. This wasn't what I was expecting or even where I wanted to be. In fact, my plan was to hold onto my job until another one came along - and the harder I tried, the more things just didn't go that way. But, it doesn't mean that things are finished, or falling apart, it just means that the path is different from what I expected.
3. Honey, did you pack my boxers?
Inevitably when I am in charge of packing I forget something, even in spite of the several lists I continually make. I usually remember, right when my husband looks at me with imploring eyes over his backpack, that I did indeed forget something that is HIS.
It's a good opportunity to beat myself up for not paying attention, or to try and blame my forgetfulness on someone else. Without fail, my husband usually just smiles, and shakes his head. He gives me that look that says, really? Then he improvises, he never gets upset with me, or says anything unkind. It's more like a game for him, to see how long it will take into our trip to figure out exactly what I've forgotten to pack.
I think that in life we put huge expectations on ourselves, and when things don't go the way we plan, we spend the time being self deprecating. I have a strong tendency to put myself down and be critical of my own attempts at getting things right, instead of just smiling and laughing it off. Something I've noticed is that life often offers second chances, and those first attempts, where I feel like I have screwed everything up, help me out when a second chance rolls around.
2. Reality Sticks - Hope Slides
There's nothing like being in a tent during a thunder storm. Nature is sharing the same air, in all its loud and pounding glory, and the only thing that is protecting you is a remarkably thin layer of canvas and plastic poles. Yet, the tent held strong, and the rain just slid down off the sides.
Reality means sticking things out, even when they look bad. It's not always easy to face, and it can sound really frightening but in the same breath, if I can let myself go from the fear and embrace the adventure of being stuck in a tent during a thunder storm, the experience becomes something completely different - exciting and kind of exhilarating all at the same time. Reality means dealing with what is in front of you, for me, it's finding a new job. But, as I am very slowly able to change my perspective about finding a new job, and instead of seeing it as terrifying, and I start to look at it as something of an adventure I start to feel hopeful - excited and exhilarated about the future.
It makes me remember that good things really do come my way, more often than I recognize, and though the waiting CAN be agonizing, it doesn't have to be. Reality gives me a daily choice, and since I'm waiting anyway for things to work themselves out, I may as well choose to be happy and enjoy life while I am waiting.
1. Love, Laughter and Family
I love family - and all of us getting together one weekend out of the year has become as important to many of us as the big celebrations like Christmas. We all congregate in the remote area of Green Lake BC and let the eating, playing, talking and laughing commence. It's a three day party, and though our lives go in thirty eight different directions all year long, in coming together to refresh ourselves, it doesn't take much time at all to catch up and start to enjoy one another again.
It's this kind of support network we all require. I always find that there is a wisdom and history about the people around me that let me know that no matter what happens, everything is going to be alright. Bad things happen to people - this weekend alone consisted of one tumble off the dock, a few scraped knees, a stomach bug, one relay race crash, and a completely removed toe nail (Which made for an interesting and informative lesson on bandaging). But, in each of these instances people emerged from their painful moments with smiles and positive attitudes, not letting anything get in the way of the palpable fun in the air.
So, bad things happen, but when there are people around who can lift you up and support you, an outlook can be changed in an instant. Having positive attitude doesn't mean that you don't have to face bad things, it just means facing bad things in a different way. Everyone has problems in life, you can't escape them, but the way that we face them makes all of the difference.
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