Not what you had in mind …

I really just wanted to get out of the house … alone.

It was a great day, really. No complaints. But those littles woke up (why?!) at 6am and we’d been going strong for more than 10 hours and this Mama Just. Needed. A. Break.  The library had a book I’d put on hold for Dutch, so I schemed up a secret slipping out the door and brisk 2 mile walk there and back. It’d be so quick they wouldn’t even miss me. Jeff came home, privy to my plan.

“Where are you going????!!!” Eagle-Eye Heidi calls out from the top of the stairs as I tiptoe toward the door. She is practically attached to me, you know.

“I’m just going to walk to the library super fast to get a book for Dutch, I’ll be back before you know it.” I smile wide, reassuring.

“I want to go WITH you!” Of course you do, child.

Jeff urges her back but I’m already resigned. It’s fine. Sure.

“Go put on your shoes!”

Of course this means finding adequate shoes for such a hike, after a long summer where all we wore were flip flops. They surface. Now we need socks. We find socks.  Tug on over her clammy kid-feet. Shoes are somehow shoved on (Note to self: we need the next size up!). Laces tied. She stands …

“There’s a BUMP in my sock. Can you please fix it?!”

I close my eyes. Really? Off go the shoes. Off go the socks. Said bump isn’t found but she’s satisfied with my search. Shoes go back on. As I fiddle with her laces ..

“Mommy can I come too? I can’t WAIT to see my book!” Dutch has bounded down the stairs, is already digging for his shoes, eyes all light.

Jeff trails down the stairs, eyes apologizing. “Guys, Mommy needs some time …”

“It’s ok,” I interrupt, “Really. Let’s do it. Family walk.”

Dutch’s shoes are equally small and impossible. Finally we are all shod. Twenty-five minutes have past. I would have been back by now.

But then … we open the door, and I step into life.

I step into this life. This is the one I have and this is the one I will rejoice in. There will be year–years–for long walks alone. Too many years of it, probably.

So we skip. We bound. We race and feels our hearts beating and rest while watching garden spiders eat their evening meal. We smile and wave at people on porches and Heidi asked approximately 8,000 questions.

And after books are tucked under our arms, we walk–slower now–back. The hill seems steeper than before so the kids make a special request: “Can we stop at those benches and read?!”

So we do. And traffic blurs by while kids fall forwards into fiction worlds, pages turn, lost in imagination, while Jeff and I fraternize from opposite park benches facing each other, and I don’t know how long past but finally we rose to finish the journey home.

Then it started pouring rain.

And so, for the last half-mile, kids mounted high on our backs, we run, gasping for air up the last few hills, and laughing that of course it’s raining now. We arrive, exhausted and overflowing all at once.

This walk was not what I had in mind … but so much better.

That’s life right? This, whatever this is for you, is not what you had in mind … but so much better.

So much more exhausting and exhilarating. So much more challenging and rewarding. So much harder and so much sweeter.

It’s not what you had in mind … but so much better.

{For whatever walks you take this week. Thanks for reading.}

*Originally shared September, 2014