We just got back from visiting Yosemite National Park. It’s stunning, and actually very accessible if you’re traveling with babies or parents that aren’t up for hiking El Capitan.
Talk of Yosemite on our family zoom brought up a memory from my mom and aunt about taking my dad’s and aunt’s parents to Yosemite when my mom and dad were first married. Travel and the outdoors was more of my mom’s family interests, but my dad’s parents? Not so much. Apparently the overnight in the tent cabins was a bit of a disaster and tears were involved. It was a treasure for me to hear the story from the before-me times.
There are lessons to be learned, even now:
- If you can laugh at what seemed like a disaster, then maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. And maybe applying that lens to my own minor disasters (like those sneaky negative memories that wake you up at night randomly?) would be a good way to reframe things.
- One disaster does not a relationship make. My mom had a great relationship with my dad’s parents, and my brother and I very much benefited. I’m so glad their Yosemite trip wasn’t allowed to do permanent damage.
- Everyone doesn’t have to like everything their family and friends are in to. My grandparents, parents, in-laws, aunts and uncles and my own kids love, enjoy and excel at very different things. And I am richer for it.
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