Dear Reader:

I am breaking my blog hiatus to bring you a special edition!   I am just fresh off the road from an EPIC ROAD TRIP with my kids.    10 days.   Toronto.  Niagara Falls.   Lots of miles.   Lots of craziness.    I am WIPED OUT.   A little bit hysterical.   Possibly insane.  

I'll try to stop with the sentence fragments right now.   Ha.   I called my Mom to let her know that I was safely home and told her that I was really proud of myself for closing the deal on this trip.   I planned it, and I implemented it, and I met its challenges.  All.  By.  Myself.    She responded - "Well, we all tend to do what we have to do, don't we?"   My Mom, as you can tell, is always the voice of stoic fortitude.  This has served our family well and has been a good example for me.   However, since I tend to be somewhat (OK, ridiculously) self critical, I have decided that this "well, I'm just doing what anybody else would do in response to these circumstances" approach to life is not the best for me.   I prefer Walt Whitman's "Celebrate myself" approach.   My friend told me that I am a Warrior Goddess for doing this, and I've decided that this is about right.  

I was nervous about doing this trip on my own with the kids.   I had to get passports (last minute - don't judge, my life is crazy and I tend to put things off of a prosaic nature in order to savor the magic moments.   It's one of those things about me.   Ordering passports is prosaic.  Imagining the excitement of the trip is magical.   You get the idea.).    I had to make sure that the oil was changed in the car, that all the reservations were made, that I had directions to my friends' house, that I was all packed, etc.   But, I worried about several things:

1) What if the car broke down and I was on my own with the kids?

2)  What if being around the kids 24/7 in the same living/sleeping space made me go crazy?

3) What if I let the kids use the iPads and the TV too much because I was exhausted?

4)  What if I got lost in a city?

5)  What if one or both of my children had epic tantrums in front of our hosts, making me feel like an awful mother?

6)  What if I cursed too much and was too impatient and irrationally angry in front of the kids because of the trip stress?

Well, guess what, dear reader?    ALL OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED.  And, I still consider the trip a raging success.  Unbelievable.   The point is, of course, that although I wanted everything to be perfect and, really, I wanted myself to be perfect, I wasn't.   It was messy.   I was super-stressed some of the time.   My daughter and I had some really knock-down, drag-out fights about her inability to go to bed by herself or stop continually asking me for sugary treats.   I got angry at my son for whining ceaselessly when something didn't go his way.   Both of my kids got extremely frustrated with me because I wasn't really listening to what they wanted.   I got hysterically upset because I was so tired from never having a bed to sleep in by myself or a moment to think by myself - kiss of death for an introvert.  

So, you know, we really got on each others' nerves.   Like a family.   Ha.   There were lots of things for which each one of us needed to be forgiven.  

But, dear reader.....

There were the moments.  You know.  The magical ones.   Seeing my girl bond instantly with my friends' daughter and want to follow her around constantly.    Watching both of my children run towards their first glimpse of Niagara Falls, fall down, pick themselves up quickly and move on because they were so excited by the sights and sounds.   Finding the spot where my Dad held me on his knee in a picture from 1976 when we were at the falls.   Seeing my daughter make daisy chains in a pretty field by the Niagara River.   Watching my son be filled with awe while crawling in a tube through the aquarium tank filled with fishes, sharks, etc.   Watching both children play soccer aggressively with our host's daughters on the schoolyard field every night in Toronto - their little bodies pulsating with energy and joy.   Seeing how proud the kids were of my ability to ride a bike around the Toronto Island.  Watching them hold each others' hands on the beach and walk along, chatting about shells.  

I am a goddess.   I'm thinking that I'm more of an Athena-type goddess.  Wisdom and warfare and self-sufficiency, and, you know, weaving :)  She's always advocating for some poor schmuck with Zeus.   None of that vain Aphrodite - "I have to be adored for my beauty" and "I'm so helpless, but also ruthless"  nonsense.   Or that Artemis-style coquetry.   She's so coy.   I really hate seeing someone be coy.  Just SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, GODDESS.   Ahem.  Anyway, Athena.  That's me.

I am celebrating that I managed to push myself out of my comfort zone and provide an experience for myself and my children that they would never have had, had I not been brave about this.   I am celebrating that I kept going through the frustration, the fear, and the exhaustion.  Also, the lack of air conditioning and the serious car trouble.   I did not give up.   I showed up.   I asked for forgiveness when appropriate.   So, essentially, it wasn't that I did what I had to do.  Although, yeah, that, too.   I did what I set out to do and I forgave myself and everyone around me for not following the master plan.   I was UNDAUNTED - Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec reference, yet again) style.   My spirits remained high.  

And, because I like to construct meaning in my life, I am going to extrapolate that this ability to continue to show up to my life (oh, it is so much easier to hide away from it in big and small ways) and forgive myself for my mistakes and live with my frustrations and grief is the key to creating the magical moments.  

I just came downstairs from another battle with my girl who needs something from me and is unable to articulate it.   I am, unfortunately, so exhausted tonight that I wasn't able to be patient with her and try to figure it out.  So, I'll try again tomorrow.   I'm not letting myself off the hook, mind you.   I don't think this is laziness, this celebration of my ability to live with imperfection.    I'm just going to try again tomorrow.   Perhaps with more sleep.  

In the meantime, I am going to continue to remind myself that I am a Goddess.   I can do hard things. I have done hard things.   Only maybe not every day.   Tomorrow, maybe, I'll do some easy things, eh?

Thanks for reading.