Guys, I hiked two miles yesterday.
The last day of the most challenging year of my life and I wanted to do something really memorable, something "big". Our travels took us by way of Guadelupe National Park, home to the highest peak in Texas. Perfect. What a fitting way to finish the year: exhaust myself with a hike to 8700 feet up.
But the Engineer's feet were not up for any hiking. The babies were whiny after the two hour drive, the other ones were talking about nothing but the swimming pool that awaited at our next campsite.
"Guys, we can't do the summit today, but we can do a four-mile with a cool scramble at the top or a two mile that goes to a spring..."
Chaos between then and getting on a trail. The louder contingent wanted to get it over with and go to the pool, which meant the shorter trail and splitting off from the RV down a dusty road. I'd grabbed some lunch stuff to eat the trailhead, but when I spread it all out, there was only enough jelly to make one PBJ and only enough nutella to make one Nutella and Cheddar (I have a weird one in there who swears it's the best), and on my way to chase the wind-escaping roll of paper towels, I found a ranger busily leaving a ticket on our windshield.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes, you have no receipt in your windshield."
I explained that I had a voucher for the park on my phone.
It had to be printed.
I explained that I'm on the road and don't carry a printer.
She suggested I find a library or something where they could print it. In the middle of the desert. On a Sunday.
Or I could just pay.
At that point, I yelled for all the kids to get to get in the van. I was done. I didn't want to hike. I tried to call the Engineer to tell him we were coming back and just going to get back on the road and get to our campsite...but my phone had no signal.
I gripped the steering wheel and one of the kids looked over at me and said out of the corner of his mouth to the others, "Guys, mommy's really stressed. Nobody say anything."
With five quiet kids stuffed in a park minivan, the silence is deafening. I wrestled with all the feelings. I don't want to hike with cranky kids. I don't want to hike this puny trail when I had a bigger better one in my sights.
Darn it, I don't want to pay that $10 fee!
I pictured the end of the day. I heard this trick from some wise person and I use it often: don't make a decision based on how you feel now, but on how it will make you feel any the end of the day.
I would not be proud of myself for limping to to our campsite at the end of the day...at the end of this upside-down year...with a story like that - that I was so pouty about the loss of the big and flashy adventure that I willfully turned away from the quiet path right in front of me.
So I clenched my jaw, dropped $10 in the fee box, wrangled the kids, and set off.
Last year on my birthday, my mom encouraged me to fully embrace the life tests that are hidden from public view. I reread and savored her words this morning:
"You're not alone, and it's not hidden from God. He walks with you...only wanting your complete and total success. He already knows your biography AND your autobiography (since they are often different), and He is the one that is most impressed with your victories."
Our hike was as discombobulated as it's precursor moments: one kid brought the wrong shoes, the other forgot his jacket, another took every pause as an opportunity to request that we head back now, and halfway through we realized we'd forgotten the backpack with all our survival supplies.
I hiked two miles through some lonely foothills to a hidden spring. That's how I finished my year and I guess I'm proud enough of that.
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