Unexpected Road

I had our summer all mapped out.  I was excited and we had plans and a way to follow through on them.  I should have known better and known life is full of curve balls and unexpected turns.

Last Friday the kids and I headed out for the first of many planned bike rides.  A nice bike ride to and from the pool a day filled with swimming, a little exercise, a lot of sun.

On our bike ride there Ciaran kept getting off his bike just not wanting to ride anymore. He is usually my most amenable rider the one I have to reign in from riding to far ahead of the rest of us.   I was feeling frustrated as we had plans and were meeting people at the pool and were already running late.  He told me had sudden growing pains and after the second stop I offered to turn around and go home, we probably should have.

Not sure if his Irish stubborn side or his desire to swim won out in the end but he decided he wanted to keep going forward.  We got to the pool and played with our friends for just a bit before they had to leave, it was nice to see there and be with them.  When they left the kids went swimming and I laid on the chair in the sunshine with my book and thought, this is a perfect way to spend summer just like this.  Get some bike exercise, relax on the pool deck, the kids can all swim themselves and I can jump in for some laps and to cool off.  It felt like summer and was lovely.

We headed home and on our bike ride home Maria took a spill at the bottom of the hill and in just that brief moment the summer changed.  We will still have a great summer, it will still be fun and filled with interesting things but it will be different now.  Maria tore a ligament in her knee in that spill and will have a long road to recovery.  There will not be many family bike rides and our time at the pool will look different over the next few weeks but it will come.

So it is time to slow down and just be.  Time to just hang out at home and have friends over to play.  Time to read together, play board games, work on puzzles, take up a new handwork hobby.  Time to swing in the hammock, have bonfires and enjoy the home we have built together.  In a few weeks or months when the injury is fully healed then it can be the time for other things.  Now seems to be the time to just be here and just be, enjoying the summer this way.  Enjoying Unexpected Road.