Prologue
I said in the last post that summer was winding down. We still technically have a couple of weeks left. Well, actually, we have about a week and a half until the official end of summer. However, last week was Labor Day (the unofficial end), and we are all back to school. So, for all intents and purposes, summer is over for 2017.
Journal
Labor Day weekend is usually our time for one last big trip before we have to buckle down for the school year. The last few years have been a trip to Emerald Lake in Vermont. We didn’t go this year, but her parents are planning a trip in October. While Christine understandably doesn’t want to take the chance of Vermont in October (we have experience of snow in Northern Vermont on Columbus Day as Grand Isle used to be our yearly trip that weekend), I had the idea this morning of maybe getting a hotel room and hanging at the campground during the day. I know her dad will make fun of us, but we can make just as much fun of him as he freezes his butt off while we are sitting in front of a cozy fire or lounging in our hot tub bath.
Who knows if we will actually go through with it. Personally, I would love to take the trip because Emerald Isle is one of my favorite places to visit. Even thought it is right off of a highway, the campground, and especially the lake, are secluded in a bowl that gives the most wonderful views of the mountains while keeping the sound of traffic on the highway where it belongs. Our other favorite campground, which we visit every year on Cape Cod, doesn’t have that same isolation. You can still hear the highway and that is somewhat annoying, but it’s the only way that we get to take that trip every year, so we tolerate it.
Last year, especially, was a fun trip to Emerald Isle. More specifically, the trip home was worth it. We stopped at a waterfall fed swimming hole for about two hours. We were going to stop at a few more, but got what we wanted from the one, so we decided to save the others for another trip. Alas, that trip wasn’t this year.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that I keep mentioning the fact that we missed the trip this year and that it is one of my favorites. However, I’m not upset by that. I am intrigued by getting a hotel in a month. We talked about doing that a few years ago for our Grand Isle trip. Then, it ended up being unseasonably warm that year, so we didn’t need the hotel. It really is hit or miss, though, and none of us want to camp in the cold. We will see how things progress for the rest of this month and into October.
So, how did we celebrate the end of summer this year? Well, in keeping with the theme of summer, we went with a laid back weekend with friends and family. We opened the weekend with a cookout with Christine’s parents and her sister’s family. In the past, this would not necessarily have been a quiet and relaxing dinner. But, times change and people change. The most stress, as it often is these days, came only from the news. Hurricanes, earthquakes, politics, etc. At least all of the bad news is made easier to handle by being with people who you love.
Another lesson that has taken far too long to learn. I’ve always been the kind of person who was more comfortable by myself. But, that might not have always been in my best interest. Sitting on the couch, watching our five children play (a bit loud at times, so we yelled at them to go outside because, in my day!), discussing current events with my father in law, and eating food that wasn’t exactly healthy proved therapeutic on that particular day. The only difference this time was that I wasn’t antisocial this time around. Hey, better late than never, right?
I might be a slow study sometimes, but once I learn a lesson, it usually stays learned. So, when Christine suggested that we end the summer with a beach trip, I agreed. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a beach guy. I will usually go when we are down on Cape Cod because I enjoy all of those beaches. However, more often than not, I’ve been skipping the trips at home. While she wanted to take one last trip to Cape Cod, that trip was going to happen the following weekend. It actually didn’t happen either weekend, but the possibility of the trip made the trip to Laurel Lake a decent second option and a way to hold me over until we get back to a Cape Cod beach. At this point, it is probably next spring or summer, but we have taken more than one trip to the beach in the winter, so maybe this will be the year that we do that trip again.
Aside from that, though, the trip to the local beach was with friends. So, I got to see all of the boys playing together in the same way that they played with their cousins the day before. This has led to games of Pokemon, promised games of YuGiOh, a couple of days of tossing a whiffle ball back and forth, and just an overall togetherness that the family hasn’t felt for a few years.
Epilogue
I know that I sound like a scratched record with these posts lately, but I’m just in awe of how things can feel so broken for so long. There have been tragedies for all in the family. We are not completely out of the woods yet in that regard, but things have definitely settled down. Those stress inducing events chip away little by little so you don’t notice the effects of each individual stress. Eventually, it just becomes too much to endure and you end up overwhelmed by it all.
As with most issues, you can’t fix them until you admit that there is a problem. It took so long to even realize that something was wrong that coming to terms with the issue was far down the road. The idea of therapy was considered more than once, but dismissed. Looking back, it might have helped. Seeing how this summer of togetherness has affected us in unexpected (but appreciated) ways, I can’t say that is so.