Road Trip

I've always wondered why some people call every trip they take a vacation. . . I mean, some trips are vacations for sure. Like going to Hawaii all expenses paid, not having to worry about anything but making sure you don't forget the sun screen. But other trips. . . not so much. Some trips are just road trips. Road trips can still be wonderful opportunities and some parts of them are even fun, but that does not make them a vacation. They are typically too stressful, too much like reality or too worklike to be a vacation.

That said, I'm pretty sure I stopped vacationing when I started having kids. Or maybe I am just having "working vacations" now. And I'm pretty sure that term is an oxymoron.

All kidding aside, though, this has been a hard trip for me. And not just because of the barfing in the car. Or starting my period for the first time in over 2 years. Or the typical stresses and hazards of driving for 20 hours straight with 4 kids in the car. Or because my great aunt died while we were here and we won't make it home in time for the funeral. It has been hard because I've been here before. Literally. We made this drive to Fort Sill for Labor Day 2010 to spend time with Joey. I remember the anticipation and excitement, happy expectations, joy to arrive and the enormous pain of having to leave. It was so easy to drive there and so hard to drive home. I got lost a lot on that trip, too. And that trip included driving through Dallas. (Dallas is like Atlanta only the roads are worse and the drivers are, too.)

This trip is hard because it makes me think about that trip. It was a good trip. We had a great time together. I thought we were happy and I thought we would be happy forever. And then it all blew up.

Its still hard to think about the good times. It still hurts. I still haven't learned to separate the good from the bad and discard the bad while benefiting from the good. Life is too much like oranges for me. I love the taste of oranges, but can't stand the white stuff between the orange and the peel. I spend way too much time peeling the orange and scraping off the white part and can never quite get it all off. It irritates me. For me, separating the pain from the good memories is about as easy as getting all the white stuff off of the orange. But its something I'm trying to learn. Life would be much easier if we could all find the benefit or the valuable lesson in each situation we find ourselves in. Imagine how much better off we'd be if we could use all the good we are ever exposed to to enrich our lives without letting it be diminished by any of the bad. I guess that's what we'll be like in heaven, only I don't imagine there will be any bad there.