(no subject)

[mereilin]

After a week of forest and river and family, we're back home. The 4th (and the 5th for good measure) were spent burning up about 500 sparklers and watching fireworks from the old railroad tracks. We stayed up too late, got up too early, and ate too many empty carbs. I laughed. I cried.

It was too short.

During the drive home was when it occurred to us that I could in fact have taken more time with the kids if Jon had just done a one-way car rental on his first day off. I don't know why this didn't occur to us in the first place, when we were poring through websites looking for bus schedules and fretting over the high cost of traveling this summer.

And once more it has been demonstrated to me that there will not, in fact, always be time to do something later and that even on vacation it's a good idea to plan the time, especially if it's limited.

For example, I deeply regret that we didn't take a day to drive to the hospital to visit my great-aunt and great-uncle, who were seriously injured in an automobile accident a couple of days before our vacation started. It would have taken a couple of hours to drive to the city, but the hospital is pretty much right across the street from the museum, which the kids would have enjoyed. Especially Danny, since the museum was hosting the traveling Titanic exhibit -- a fact we didn't discover until we were home.

Now I'm feeling like we missed a little piece of destiny, especially when our canoeing plans were rained out on Thursday. Would've, could've, should've.

The other blow was when I realized we'd spent my parents' only day off driving to another state with my cousin. When she'd proposed the idea of disappearing on a day when the folks wouldn't need our help at the restaurant, it sounded reasonable. 12 hours after our arrival with the whole week stretching ahead of us, it didn't seem like a problem.

Saturday night -- when I'd spent probably 45 cumulative minutes of quality visiting time with my parents over six days, and with our Sunday morning departure looming -- I finally realized what an unfortunate decision that had truly been.

We spend more time with Jon's mother in a single day trip, during which she is certain to make some innocent remark about how we'll spend an entire week visiting my parents. If she only knew.

There is no time to be bitter, however. It's going to be unreasonably hot and humid today. The kids need to get to the library for summer reading, and the house needs attention. I can't get back what I missed, but I can try not to let more things slip away.

There will not always be time to do some things later.

Comments

[htnatch.livejournal.com]

You got the lesson, so it was not a wasted experience. *hug*

I'm glad you had a good time, except for the regrets. We all need good times to happen more often.