An Exercise in Savoring - A Trip For My Son
My favorite birthday gift as a kid was two tickets to Six Flags Over Texas for my dad and I. All I wanted was to ride as many rides as possible. My dad told the story this week to my kids that when we went to Six Flags, we’d get off the Shock Wave, and he’d look back to find me. Before he knew it, I’d already have found someone riding by themselves, asking if I could hop in with them. And then I’d do that over and over until there was no single rider to jump in with.
When we moved to Texas, I decided to celebrate my son's birthday with a trip to the place of that filled my youthful dreams.
A best friend of mine from childhood (who’s now part of my regular life thanks to the move home) and her daughter joined my two munchkins and I and roadtripped to Arlington. Can I just tell you about this incredible day for a second?
First, (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!) I was doing this with a best friend I never imagined living close enough to ever create such a memory with our own kids. And, my kids loved every second of running around sweaty in the Texas heat to ride whatever we wanted. My tiny daughter decided she wanted to ride the 245 foot tall Titan FIRST, having never ridden anything larger than a kiddy coaster (THE WAY I HELD HER BODY TO THE SEAT WITH MY OWN ARM, Y’ALL.). My typically nervous little boy rode a double loop coaster. And don’t get me started on the roulette wheel that is that roaring rapids type ride. The giggling never ceased.
When they DID ride the kiddie coaster for the zillionth time, they simply just jumped off and ran to me giggling WHEN THE WHEEL POPPED OFF THE COASTER and the ride attendant had to shut it down manually to usher the children back to the platform.
Still, it was one of the best days of the year. Here were the two best parts, the parts that I wrote down in my CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! journal entry.
We shut the park down, letting the kids run through kiddie rides until the park attendants told us we had to leave. Just like I remembered, to signal the end of the day, over every speaker in the park opera began to play. Then long ballads about And it was my son, on his birthday, who was the last kid on the last ride in the kid section they call Bugs Bunny Boomtown. When he climbed into one of six loop-making space rockets, I whispered the fact of his birthday to the ride attendant. Because this was the last ride of the night, the other ride attendants had gathered around her, and as the rockets began their circling, while my son pulled the lever that lifted his single rocket into the air, the ride attendant took the loud speaker to say, “It’s a special day today! We’d like to wish one pilot a very happy birthday!” And all the ride attendants shouted his name and cheered, “Happy Birthday!”
He smiled a sweet little smile, and my eyes filled with tears, and he flew on while over the speaker Celine Dion belted out the climatic ending to “God Bless America”, and I thought, you know, I do actually feel blessed.
I know I’ve written a lot about strategies to get through the tough stuff. And I think I wanted to share this memory with you because part of being resilient to whatever I’m challenged by is the act of savoring the good stuff. And spending these few minutes with you savoring this memory feels really great.
What are you savoring about your life right now? I’d love to hear.
