Weekend Getaway

When the world shut down a few months ago, we booked a weekend in Brown County as an early anniversary celebration and because getting away from the people we brought into the world seemed like a good idea at the time. We tend to avoid July for these weekends because it is usually too hot to enjoy hiking, hot tubs and porch swings. The joke was on us with temperatures in the nineties but we made the best if it with early morning hikes and late evening dinners on the covered porch.

As it turns out, the timing of this weekend was perfect despite repeatedly questioning if we should cancel. You see, not only did the world as a whole lose its collective mind last week, but our personal world has been rocked a bit too.

We used the time away together to not only connect and reflect our almost twenty-six year marriage, but also make peace with the chaos our particular brand of crazy produces. With five kids, it is always something, or several things as is often the case. The week ahead holds oral surgery for Lauren in Georgia and I cannot be there for support. This breaks my heart. We hope to have our air conditioning serviced as the unit is making obnoxious noises that indicate we are living on borrowed time. Kate is getting braces and Erin is receiving biopsy results and meeting with her doctor to discuss surgical options. The weight of it all could bury us if we allow. So whereas the timing felt altogether wrong because we left Erin to process and research while running our home, it was also exactly what we all needed. She was kept busy with the animals while little siblings made meals and we had time away from the noise to surrender once again to the reality we are not in control. This, I believe will be a life long journey for me. Greg rolls with the punches as I internally wrestle with scenarios and hesitate to lessen the grip I hold. We make a good team. We chatted a bit about our relationship and realized it is storms like this week that have bonded us so closely together. So for all the discomfort of the hard seasons, they are never wasted as they tend to grow us.

The weekend was perfect, in all the imperfect ways.