Moments to Forget

We are supposed to be together now. We should be in a quaint little cottage in the hills of Los Angeles. Bright and colorful, bohemian, energetic, warm…I loved this Airbnb find, just blocks from my son. I should be organizing our home away from home, unpacking Nannie’s cookies and banana breads and arranging the games we shlepped across the country, because what is a family vacation without game nights. I turn every rental and hotel into a little home, make it ours, making it right. I should be working in my new nook, my office for the week, while my people sleep in. We should be going to Venice Beach, the Getty, or Griffith Observatory in a few hours. I should be hugging my son. We should be exhausted from our travels, creating amazing memories and surviving vacation moments we would rather forget.

Our family has always liked to be on the move…a day trip to Coney Island, a gorge in upstate NY, a house swap with Canadians, a trip to a family farm in South Dakota, we love experiences. Having kids never stopped us, in fact it encouraged us. Driving across a state listening to Arthur the Aardvark sing about his lucky pencil…on a 6 hour loop…with two toddlers, joyous. Our kids were awesome travelers, and we were at our best as a family, except for those moments when we weren’t.

Those moments, filled with tears, exhaustion, arguments, lost items, missed connections, declarations of NEVER doing this again.. those moments we want to forget…oh how I wish we were having those moments this week. How I wish we could be a normal dysfunctional family again. How I wish we could be together no matter how much we annoy one another, how much we yell, how much we declare never again…I miss it all.

The picture below was taken in the Badlands, South Dakota. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, it actually feels like you are visiting another planet. Perfection, especially on a glorious sunny day. This was July. It was hot. We had tired kids, hungry kids, and they were done…D…O…N…E…done. Driving we noticed another beautiful landscape, it was one “oh my gosh, let’s get out and look” too many. As Greg and I oohed and ahhhed…the kids climbed out of the car and gave up right there on the rocks, Olivia was literally weeping…and instead of being good parents…we took a selfie.

I have no idea when we will be together again, but when we are, I am sure there will be moments of joy and moments we wish to forget. I am so glad I have this ridiculous blip in time on film, hell on earth, captured forever. Swoon.