My friends, we have one more weekend of summer vacation left. The kids start school on Monday. All of those plans for summer? We only accomplished a few. Where has the summer gone?
But those few events were pretty major. For example, we just returned from North Carolina. We spent the week before last week in Charlotte and Greensboro (staying at an inn in Elon), where we traveled to watch our daughter run in the Junior Olympic National meet. Initially, I thought it might be a trip that involved the runner and a parent, but because we have cousins and college friends in the area, the meet provided impetus to take the whole family for a summer vacation trip.
The meet started on Monday and ended on Saturday, and our daughter was supposed to run Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and maybe Saturday, which gave us Sunday and Tuesday and part of the other days for visiting. So we spent most of the first part of the week enjoying the company of our cousins, talking, laughing, swimming, and eating some delicious food. These are cousins on my husband's side, a set of five siblings who have kids all roughly in the 6-16 year old age range, and who all, miraculously, live within 5 miles of their parents and each other and get along. They have a family band and lots of projects. We have seen them rarely since we moved from Virginia in 2009, about the same time that the "wedding years" of our generation of cousins petered out, but over the last couple of years, we've reconnected - travel is easier, my husband designed a mountain house for them, and they came to Coronado and Austin a couple of times. And now we are starting to enter the "funeral years" of our parents' generation, sad to say - but soon enough the wedding years of our kids simultaneously, offering more opportunities to gather.
On Tuesday, we went out to eat with our college friends, a couple who started dating about the same time we did. It was like no time at all had passed between the last time we saw each other, which was back in our Chicagoland days nearly 20 years ago, when we all lived in the suburbs and occasionally met up when our babies were little. We were pregnant together a couple of times in those years. Over delicious food - all the vegetables! - and drinks, we laughed and talked and parted reluctantly with the comforting knowledge that good friends are for a lifetime.
The next few days were spent mostly at the track. My parents drove down to join us in cheering, and we stayed at a cute inn on the beautiful campus of Elon University, which looks just what a southern college should look like with big, shady trees and red brick buildings, about 30 mins from the track. We picked Elon because all of the affordable hotels in Greensboro were booked by the families of the other 14,999 athletes. It was hot and muggy, but the sun was out, and I love a good race, so the days went by quickly. Our daughter placed 8th, which gets a medal, in the 800 m and 4th in the 4x 800 relay, which also earned a medal. In the 4x 400, her team placed 16th in the semi-finals, so no medal, and they did not place high enough to get a spot in the finals, which were supposed to be on Saturday.
Our original plan was that we'd fly the 5 members of the family living at home this summer out for the first part of the week for a visit with the cousins, and then my husband and the 2 kids not running would fly back on Thursday evening to return to work/life and to save money, since we knew the runner might not run on Saturday. As it turned out, their Thursday flight became one of the summer travel cancellation statistics, so they were able to stay one more day and watch the Friday race.
When we found out their flight was changed, and we knew that she wasn't running on Saturday, I called the airline to find out their rescheduling policy. After waiting and waiting to talk to a live person from the airline, I made the decision to rebook on the same flight as the rest of the family since when the receptionist said there was no charge to change. As soon as I did, though, I had a sinking feeling about cutting short our vacation. NOOOOO!, my inner critic yelled, What have I done?! I had just canceled our second visit with our college friends, with whom we were planning to stay Saturday night! I could have rebooked for Saturday afternoon, so I would still have had the rest of Friday for a day of relaxing, potentially going for a hike in the woods of North Carolina, and then meeting our friends for dinner. Now I had just cancelled my fun!
So for a few days I wallowed in a cesspool of self-pity - or maybe it was just post-party depression - because our most recent summer vacation trip was cut short by a day and a half. Why do I second guess my decisions all the time? While I had been waiting on the phone to speak to someone, I had been doing calculations -- I figured there would be a fee to rebook the flight, so I wasn't really thinking about the reality of the decision. I also knew I would save money on a night in a hotel if I was able to rebook. Then I was balancing spending the extra time with friends whom we had already had dinner with earlier in the week with spending the extra time with the kids, who had some invitations for the weekend, and I have a list of stuff to get done before school starts, as well. When the airline phone attendant said there was no fee and asked if she should go ahead, I said yes, not thinking about how disappointed I would feel to give up the extra visit and the time alone with just the one daughter.
As I am writing this, I am questioning why I am still ruminating on this decision - there is a lesson here for me. I often choose what seems to be the responsible thing to do, but isn't always the thing I want to do. We are at the point that we can spend money on a vacation and the kids don't need as much hands-on supervision, and yet I haven't mentally released myself from that mindset of saving money and watching kids. I am frustrated by missing out on the last day of vacation, but also for overthinking my inability to think clearly about decisions like this. I need a policy - like always say YES to friend and family time! But then, it's also family time back here. . . so while having a policy sounds good, it also is hard to apply. I still need to practice not overthinking - perhaps by setting priorities based on values to help guide decisions, and sticking with those values by deciding without rethinking. As someone who chronically second guesses decisions, knowing WHY I decide something would help me decide and move on.
The fact that I was sad to go is evidence of how much we loved North Carolina - it was so green and lush, and the family time was restorative. It was a wonderful way to end the summer.
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