Clearing the bar

As the movie Christmas Vacation wraps up, Clark W. Griswold takes a deep breath and says, with a maniacal look in his eye, "I did it."  He's referring to completing his quest of putting together a "good old fashioned family Christmas" so his children can carry with them the same special memories of the holidays that he has from his own childhood.  And yes, after many hilarious misadventures, he really did do it.

At 7:45 this evening my weary daughters and I pulled into our driveway, roughly twelve hours after leaving my sister's driveway in Indiana.  Planning this little vacation was my quest the past couple of months, my attempt to give my daughters some memories powerful enough to last the rest of their lives.  As I put the car in "park" and turned off the key I quietly thought to myself - "I did it."

Expectations are such a tricky process.  Set them too high and run the risk of being, oftentimes, terribly disappointed.  Set them too low and get nothing but low results.  Read enough of my posts and you'll notice two trends with my expectations; I often talk about setting the bar low as to avoid disappointment, and rather than get excited about anything I instead tentatively hover at "cautiously enthused".  I threw my own caution to the wind in both cases for this trip, and now that it's over I can say, with great relief, that it was far greater than I ever imagined it could be.

The driving was fine - we sailed through downtown Chicago today and rarely had to let off the gas!  The activities provided nothing but positive memories (aside from the scarring on our feet from yesterday's adventure).  My sister took great care of us in her beautiful home while also making sure we stayed very busy, in a good way.  My kids and their cousins got many hours of time together.  And most importantly, we brought back a mountain of memories that none of us will soon forget.  Expectations set, met, and surpassed.

Now I know many readers will read these posts about this trip and think "Big deal, they went a few states away to do nothing different than millions of people do on vacation."  Very true, but you've got to understand - a trip like this, small as it was, is not a common occurrence in my lifestyle.  I don't do trips or travel or adventure.  Or at least I didn't.  My choice to make this a year of exploration pushed me to do something that I've (foolishly.....stubbornly) put off for years.  But I took that step to take that trip and lo and behold it was everything I could have possibly wanted and more.  So now that I'm back and feeling growth and confidence I've decided I need to change the way I talk about the vacation.  I've been calling it "the trip we took......"

I'm now calling it "the first trip we took....."