TWO LESSONS

"Life isn't about searching endlessly to find what's missing; it's about learning to live with the missing parts."

~ Micheal Finkel

On Tuesday morning, my family drove from Toronto to Boston in a rental car.  Why?  Because the day before we'd flown from Turks and Caicos to Toronto and then our connecting flight to Boston was canceled due to bad weather.  Why not hop on a different flight that night, you ask?  Great question.  There were no flights out to Boston or to any nearby airports for at least two days.  And, while I'm all for extending a family vacation, spending a few extra days in an airport hotel, eating chicken nuggets and sharing a bed with my kids for another 48 hours didn't sound too appealing.  Plus, there was the whole school and work thing.  Perhaps you're wondering why we flew through Toronto to get down to the Caribbean in the first place.  Also a great question.  Simply put, it saved us a lot of money to fly halfway across the country in the wrong direction and then back down instead of going straight down from Boston.  Worth it?  Financially...yes.  Mentally...debatable.  As we drove home from Toronto, I wrote a very long post about the experience we'd had the night before at the airport which included things like customs personnel laughing at us, two lost bags, one found bag, no available rental cars, second bag found an hour later, car finally rented, a long wait for the airport shuttle in sub-zero temps, dealing with over-tired kids and so on.  It was a ridiculous comedy of errors and lasted a total of four and a half hours from when we got off the plane to when we finally made it to the hotel room.  I then went on to share the other funny story from my trip.  The one about how Air Canada lost my suitcase on the flight down and still hadn't located it by the time we were leaving for home.  No joke.  I spent a week down in the islands with one bathing suit (which I'd randomly thrown in my carry-on), one set of running clothes (which I'd worn on the plane), and a couple pairs of shorts, which I'd borrowed from my 13 year old.  It wasn't ideal, but I made it work.  I did call Air Canada every day hoping they'd found my bag only to hear them tell me they were so very sorry but they had absolutely no idea where it was.  I won't lie and say I wasn't bummed that half of my wardrobe was potentially gone forever.  But, that said, I was still managing to have an amazing time with my family in easily one of the most beautiful places on the earth.  When I got home and regrouped I pulled up my original post to edit it and ended up scrapping it and starting over.  I decided that I really didn't need to rehash it all and that you didn't need to hear it.  Shit happens.  We all go through crazy stuff every single day.  And while it can be a pain in the ass, most of it is usually pretty manageable.  I learned two valuable lessons after getting through this week; first, rather than focus on what I don't have, I need to work with what I've got.  And second, sometimes less is more.  No suitcase?  No suitcase.  No unpacking, no laundry, nothing to lose (beyond the suitcase itself), no valuables that can be stolen, no pre-dinner outfit crises, no choices to make at all, really.  I just woke up every day, threw on the one running outfit that I had (not to worry, I did wash this daily), hit the road, came back, put on my one bathing suit and then went about my day.  My girls were having a ball, the weather was gorgeous and we were all together.  End of story.  As I dive (er...cannonball) into this new year, which I'm sure will be full of surprises, I'll be trying hard to fall back on these lessons in every element of my life.  

Listen to this: 

Out Of My Head - Loud Forest