When I was a kid, I'd go crazy with anticipation: for Christmas, my birthday, the start of a new school year, the end of a school year and the start of summer...you name it, I'd be eagerly counting the days and minutes until it would come, and then go, in a flash. My unrealistic expectations almost always meant the event would somehow disappoint. I needed it to be too big, too perfect. I needed it to break up the mundane of my daily life, or to, for at least those moments, make everything else seem ok. I needed it to be magical.
I have just returned home from a two month sabbatical, riding around the country on the back of a motorcycle visiting friends and family, happily meeting new folks and tearfully saying goodbye to some too soon. I attended conferences, helped with motorcycling events, hung out in campgrounds, and even officiated at a wedding. People continually ask if it was an amazing time, and I have struggled with a simple answer.
The simple answer is 'sure, it was a ton of fun.' In many ways it was, and the freedom of being on the road for those two months with my husband was a gift I will treasure. But more importantly, what I learned was that it really was about living... on the road, at home: being present to whatever I was doing. It wasn't the anticipation, the expectation, the need for it to be amazing. It was the need for it to
'just be.'
We let the trip unfold, and noticed what showed up. We started with a general outline of places we needed to be, and built the rest spontaneously. Instead of scheduling every minute, and filling all the blank spaces with 'amazing things to do' we picked a direction that would generally lead us to the next event we had committed to attend, and started riding.
Some of our best moments were the unplanned. Meeting strangers in a campground while waiting to attend a friend's memorial service led to an offer of a place to stay for several nights and new friends in Virginia. Deciding to follow someone's recommendation to try a motorcycle only campground led to five nights hanging out in the hills of North Carolina and meeting fellow riders from all over, sharing stories and laughter over campfires in the sultry air. Changing our route to reconnect with cousins on both sides of our families that we hadn't seen in years brought back memories of family and some new stories we'd never heard before.
Coming home wasn't the dreaded letdown it had often been in the past. The sabbatical wasn't an escape from a life of drudgery, it was a renewal and a reconfirmation that the life I am living is the one I want to be living, whether I am on the road or home. Each day is to be lived fully, to be open to whatever shows up, to be mindful of not allowing the schedule to dictate my life. Some amazing things happen when I let go of trying to make them perfect.
