Take Time to Enjoy the Scenery

The kids and I went on a lovely hike up Millcreek Canyon today. We hiked up to Dog Lake and had a great time! This is a hike I had never done before but several people had said they’d done it recently so I thought we might give it a try.

When we got up to the trailhead we find that there are two trails that both lead up to Dog Lake. We take the one on the west side of the parking lot and start heading up. The trail was lovely and green the entire way and only had a gradual slope the whole way up, this allowed the kids to take their time…perhaps they took too much…

On the way up the kids talked about how they wish right now they had a hover car because they had never walked to much in their lives. They grumbled, they complained, they sang, they told stories, smiled, laughed, argued, cried; the works. We really had no idea how far the lake was but everyone had said it was about 1.5 miles up. This number, turned out to be not the case. We chose the longer, easier trail, 3.2 miles from the bottom to the top. Another 3.2 miles back down, not to mention the .5 plus miles from the car to the trial head.

My kids, needless to say, were exhausted. I don’t think they’ve ever walked that far in their entire lives – cumulative. For me, it was really a breeze. My biggest trouble with the hike was how sloooooow the kids took it. I felt like I was never quite able to get a momentum going, but I was able to take time and take some lovely pics of the surroundings and really enjoy just being.

At the top of the trail we took some time and just sat and chatted for a bit while watching all the many, many dogs playing in the water. The kids were sooo proud of themselves for making it! They kept saying how awesome they were and that they can now do anything. I love my kids!

Well, time came to head back down and we followed the trail, or so we thought. At one point Stasia and I looked at one another and said “This trail doesn’t look familiar at all.” But we decided that we would keep on going, I mean, hey, it’s a trail and it’s heading down, so it can’t be too bad, can it? Well this was a MUCH different trail. The terrain was much steeper, less shade and many more rocks…I think we each took our turn to slip and fall at least once. But, the other difference was that this must have been the trail everyone had talked about because it was only about 1.8 miles.

The kids said over and over that they were glad that we hadn’t taken this trail up, that they would have given up if they had, but were glad to be taking it down. Now, as I often do, I started to think about the trails and how they relate to my life.

Most of my life has been like the second trail. I’ve been presented with steep, rocky terrain and many obstacles. And I was always taught to just go “full steam ahead”. Life is full of bumps and bruises and it’s our responsibility to pick ourselves up and keep blazing ahead. Sure, I’ve learned a lot from taking this trail but I wonder if there hadn’t been another trail that I overlooked somewhere along the way that would have brought me to the same destination.

Part of the reason, I believe that the path I’ve been on has been strewn with rocks and obstacles is my need to be in control of every situation. I have to know what’s going on when, where, why, how, etc and if things don’t go the way that I planned then I would fight against what was there in order to mold it to what I thought I wanted. It’s that molding of life to my idea of what life should be that has caused all the obstacles.

Then, a few years back, life began to change and I realized that I couldn’t control it all. There were things out of my control, people who needed to make their own decisions and there I was lost. My life, as I had seen it and planned it, was upside down and inside out and there was nothing I could do to put it back into the mold I had created for it.

It was then that I realized that, perhaps, there was a different path for me to be on, a path that was, perhaps longer than the one I was on, but one whereon I could enjoy life. Where the slope was gradual, the lessons still there to be learnt but one on which I could be happy, where I could see and experience the beauty that is life. Life, which I had overlooked for so many years while I tried to shape it and mold it into what I thought it should be instead of enjoying it and letting it just happen.

While the divorce was devastating and heart breaking, the lessons learned over the last two years have been incredible and, I have been truly much more at peace and much more happy with myself and my life. Yes, I still sometimes lose sight of life and the joy that is around me. Yes, I, at times, fall into my old habits of forcing people and experiences into what I expect them to be rather than what is natural, but ultimately, what I have learned is to take time and enjoy the beauty around me that is my life.