Go Away!

How do you even caption this? I’m so thankful that I got to enjoy it!

Last month we took the two younger kids and escaped our house to go to our family’s cabin for a few days. Before we went there was some grumbling, mostly wondering what we’re going to do there. My response was, “At least we can stare at different walls!” It turned out to be wonderfully relaxing for all of us. You can read about it here.

While planning that trip my husband Tom made it clear that we, he and I, need to get away too. I grumbled a bit about that. Enter mom guilt: Why should he and I get to go away and the kids have to stay home? How is that fair? But you know how sometimes you just know how important something is to someone? Well, I could tell this was non-negotiable. We needed to get away. I checked the calendar and found 3 days sandwiched between dropping off the older two girls at their respective colleges, cleared it with Grandma, and here we are, back at the cabin! I actually can’t recall the last time we went away, just the two of us, with no agenda. We were in fact away together the week before everything shut down, and as lovely as it was, I was accompanying him on a ministry related visit. Having no responsibilities makes me feel rather giddy!

He’s had a few phone appointments, I brought my computer to do a few things like, say, write a blog post! But we also indulged in some binge-watching and my new favorite cabin activity—creek sitting! We brought our low beach chairs, drove to the creek, walked to the middle and planted our chairs in the water. It was another giddy moment for me. It was so beautiful and the creek was so refreshing! We sat there for over an hour and read our books. This morning I slept in until 8:12am. Crazypants.

Living in the midst of a pandemic can be deceiving. Perhaps it’s a bit like living through any trauma—you just keep doing the next thing that needs to be done in order to survive but eventually you will wear down. I’ve definitely had my moments when the fatigue and stress came to the surface. It’s difficult to be intentional about taking time away. You may not have the luxury of physically getting away. Your time away may be reading a book for an hour in the afternoon, watching a movie or show after the kids go to bed, journaling, writing a letter to a friend, or napping. If you can’t even manage any of those ideas, is there a friend you can reach out to? Someone who can lighten your burden even just a little bit? We need to be looking out not just for ourselves, but for each other. And if you can manage it, go away!