Sitting here taping my eyelids to stay awake and trying to process the last 4 days.
To start; just being away from our kids and feeling a sense of parental accomplishment. We've fucked up plenty in our attempt to raise them differently than either of us, but leaving them at home without really anyone but themselves to figure it out was a new level of anxiety as we left for Colorado. But they freaking crushed it from the moment we left. They got along and worked well as a unit to juggle each of their summer schedules with one driver. They genuinely loved every call and text with updates from our adventures in Colorado. This was an unexpected blessing of the trip, and gave us both and especially Paula, she's more the worrier, a sense of freedom that they're going to be alright.
Then there's the local business that we've been grinding on for ten years. From start-up, to screw-ups, to sustaining, to scaling, to a global pandemic, to resetting, to managing 100s of other humans through the years. It's awesome in many ways, but I can't deny it has taken plenty of years off of me. But this trip confirmed further, I've got the best crew I've ever had. Like the kids this kid shined too. Another real sense of freedom to be able to leave it in good hands.
And then there's the trip itself. Being with my wife without the outstanding distraction of kids or a small business, really gave us time to be in love. Just the act of taking a trip for our own relational benefit; the selfishness of it felt pretty damn good, and proved redemptive. We have a good life at home, but getting away, this far away, together, with the freedoms experienced above just took the character of our love to the next level. The facets of our love are not all beautiful and there are hard chapters in the story that still don't make sense. I have no idea where the story goes from here, a new chapter may begin tomorrow, but the chapter at this moment is mighty fine, and this trip revealed that gift we've been blessed with these past 25 years.
And you know you might ask the "what" questions regarding the trip. What did you see? What did you eat? What did you DO? And as much as we saw, experienced, and DID; none of those particular "whats" really mattered. The "whys" and the "whos" is all that really mattered. Our friends, our community, in a place far from home yet it never felt more like home. The pride, the joy, the love, the grace that got shared and tossed around as indiscriminately as confetti was the real power.
Some might say we rolled a lot of natural 20s on this adventure, I'll just call it glorious!