“Maybe the best thing to do is to stop trying to figure out where you’re going and just enjoy where you are!”
For those of you that know me, you will know that I absolutely HATE rain! I think it must be the fact that I grew up with so many rainy days in England that I truly would be OK if I never saw rain again.
For my birthday this year we planned a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii (the only island I haven’t already been to – at least of the most popular ones), and we brought the kids. We have had a wonderful few days here already, and today we planned a trip to the Volcano to go and see everything there. We have heard stories of lava flows, views of the crater making the sky glow and walking on the lava to see the lava underneath glowing. We had heard that there might be a storm coming in later in the day, so we set off early.
As we drove to the wet side of the island, all was great until we hit the town of Hilo (which by the way is the rainiest city in the United States with an average of 22 days a month of rain). As we approached the National park, the rain became harder and stronger, and by the time we made it to the visitor center we pulled out our raincoats just to make it across the parking lot without drowning. We found out some information about things that we MIGHT be able to see without all the rain and cloud coverage getting in the way. We explored the inside of a lava tube, got really soggy and ran back to the car. We then drove down below the clouds and actually found a place to walk out onto the lava without rain and had fun looking at petroglyphs.
All in all we had some fun times, with lots of driving in a wet dog smelling car because of the all the soggy clothes! We then decided to go to the famous Black sand beach to hang out for a little…well, that didn’t happen. As soon as we got out of the car, the skies opened up again and we got soaked.
Now, with all this rain coming down, things not looking how I might at one time have imagined they should look, this is the time I might have started to lose my cool. Instead, I decided to take a different tactic. I actually didn’t let the weather and my inability to control it, stop me from having a fun day with all my boys. A miraculous thing happened…I actually enjoyed myself. I found myself not worrying about my hair looking crazy, I didn’t get worked up about being wet, I didn’t try to hurry the kids back into the car so we could hurry and get out of there. I actually just let it be what it was!
Brandon and I talk all the time about “fighting with the weather” and how I get worked up or disappointed because I have expectations about how the weather should be! I realize this is probably a crazy notion, but it is still something I fight all the time. Have you ever been so excited about a vacation, an outing or an occasion, so much so that if the weather when you get there is not what you imagined it would be, you start to become frustrated or disappointed?
Brandon and I were in Hawaii last year for my birthday and every day was amazing EXCEPT for on my actual birthday. I woke up happy until I saw the rain pouring and I actually felt a little depressed. I found myself thinking “why did it have to rain today”? For those of you that have never thought any of these things, I promise I’m not crazy, it’s just an example of something I like to try to control but I absolutely can’t.
The idea of managing expectations and letting go of control works for so many other things that I thought I would share with you my experience and how I am still only learning, but I am definitely working on it – which is the first step, right?
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