Getting Away

Sometimes, you just need to get away.

It’s fun for everyone. For Mom and Dad, it’s the pleasure of an hour all to ourselves, talking while the little ones nap in the car—of breaking bread with a treasured mentor, of making new connections, of swapping stories about people we all know and love.

For Alex, it’s the excitement of miniature golf and kiddie coasters. For Julianna, it’s getting to run a bumper car into Alex, and hurl herself facedown onto a pile of hotel pillows again and again, just to see if they’re still as comfy soft as they were ten seconds ago. For Nicholas, it’s new faces, new places, new sights and sounds and endless stimulation.

Maybe it’s also the knowledge that the unfinished redecorating project, the pile of laundry and the messy bathrooms are a hundred miles away. That for two days, it’s someone else’s job to make the bed, cook the food and do the dishes.

Time away allows us to see each other with renewed eyes. The mannerisms make us smile instead of want to pull our hair out. We laugh more. We go with the flow. We nitpick less and help more.  We don’t magically become perfect parents, flawless spouses and angelic kids, but we do shed some of the negative baggage that collects on us from day to day like slimy swamp goo hanging in strings off our spirits.

And then, by the grace of God, we can carry our newfound relaxation home with us, back into the daily grind, and infuse gray reality with a splash of magic, and fun, and joy.