While my Vesper socks are lovely to me, they are not, perhaps, interesting blog fodder two days in a row. Since I am not quite willing to put my vacation behind me (in fact, I am trying to store little bits of it inside me where I can call on it when I need some inner calm) I thought I'd share something I wrote on our last day in Kauai. We'd just finished up a drive to the southern and western most end of the road on the island and gobbled down our last shave ice (the best we had the whole trip) and were letting Z have some play time in a wonderful park area near Lydgate Beach. I pulled out my knitting/craft project journal and thought about that perennial question that every grade schooler gets to answer in September: "What Did I Do on my Summer Vacation?". Here's a snapshot of that list:
- Celebrated my baby girl's 2nd birthday by lighting up 30 sparklers on the beach.
- Swam with an eel, an octopus and a green sea turtle while snorkeling.
- Drank my coffee on the beach almost every morning.
- Finished a milestone sweater project: Lotus
- Watched my baby girl go from being unwilling to go in the water to running into the ocean up to her neck.
- Forgot about work. Job? Arlington Heights? What Job?
- Went to sleep almost every night listening to the rain fall.
- Saw several beautiful rainbows.
- Looked down into a valley from Wai Ale Ale.
- Watched the sun go down over Ke'e Beach
- Ate shave ice almost every day. Personal favorite flavor combination: pineapple and margarita over macadamia nut ice cream from JoJo's in Waimea.
- Packed the lightest I've ever packed -- and still overpacked. But it was still a major accomplishment.
- Got a really great tan (as long as you don't look at my pale belly) -- with sunscreen.
- Lived up to my promise to John to make our vacation a bitch-free zone given his incredible baby wrangling on the flights out.
- Felt content about my world and grateful for all the good people and wonderful things in it.
These are small things, mostly, but this vacation, I think, was about teaching me to appreciate the small things and not to get hung up on what I couldn't do. Having a child creates some vacation limits, but it also created some wonderful memories that only happened because those limits existed. I like to think that maybe part of growing up is being able to accept what is in front of me instead of just always wishing for something I don't have or getting frustrated when I can't check off every box on my "to do" list.
What about you? Have you learned anything important so far this summer? It doesn't have to have resulted from a vacation.
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I don't feel like I've really learned that much this summer, though there are lessons that are just staring me in the face.
The lesson I should be learning is to ask for help and be willing to work on the things that make me unhappy. This is normally housework. I feel like I have so little time when I get home from work that it is a constant challenge to even get the counters all wiped down.
It is so true that with a child, you have to lower your expectations, but then when you slow down and say "let's just have a simple picnic", you end up with such a much richer time than running around seeing everything. Sounds like you had a great vacation - maybe we'll try it too!
Have I learned anything this summer? Nothing new, but that some things just don't work and just need to be abandoned.