Praise to the God of all Comfort: Hawaii

I have not posted in awhile because I am in the middle of research paper month (two huge ones are due in just a couple of weeks) and because the kids and I have been traveling. June has been such a roller coaster month for me. I have stepped outside my comfort zone in ways that have stretched me immensely and I have also curled up with favorite books that comfort me.

School for the kids let out the first week of June and we flew to Hawaii for a week. It was a somewhat spontaneous trip and I conquered a lot of fears in taking the kids to two of the Hawaiian Islands and exploring. I had not been to Hawaii since Ryan and I were there in 2001. And granted, I took the kids to two different islands than where Ryan and I were at, but it still was a trip that felt challenging to me and yet one I so wanted to do. I overcame some anxiety about travel details in general - just all the craziness of driving to the LAX airport, 5.5 hour flight, rental car, hotels, etc... Our vacation actually overlapped with a friend who was vacationing there too so it was nice to have the company and support during the middle of our trip. And honestly, my kids are getting old enough that they help with planning and navigation and logistics more and more, so traveling actually becomes easier. It’s kind of cool to see the transition from full time to parent to part-time friend with my kids as they mature.

Our time in Hawaii was amazing. I felt such a sense of peace just disengaging from my routines of life for a week. And I realized how much I crave adventure. I took Charlie open water snorkeling and to see lava from the active volcano on the big island. I took Kate to see sea turtles and shopping (her two requests!). We all climbed through several miles of lava tube caves with our friends. And on Kauai, the kids and I kayaked five miles up the Wailua River and hiked two miles through the rainforest to swim under a waterfall. It was physically exhausting and amazing. We stayed up until 10pm just building sandcastles on the beach under the stars, ate shave ice, threw coconuts in the sea, and swam in the hotel pools. I loved every moment of our time in Hawaii and I enjoyed the time with my kids outside our normal routines. I loved seeing the kids laugh and play and explore and bond with friends. Charlie loves to explore and even Kate let go of her teenage attitude to just play and enjoy. It was a week that is very precious to me, for a lot of reasons.

On the plane ride home, however, I was hit with a large wave of anxiety that really surprised me. The intensity of it was almost overwhelming and very startling. I think it truly was a grief trigger that I had not anticipated. I still often have tiny triggers here and there that make me feel sad or teary-eyed for a moment or so, just acknowledging them and letting them pass. But I had not felt that kind of overwhelming wave of intense grief for a long time now. And it scared me the way it showed up, while I was in an airplane seat with no place to escape to. My kids were on either side of me, both lost in a movie with headphones on and I felt claustrophobic and panicky sitting on that flight. I decided to use the time to just pray, a lot like I did two summers ago when grief completely consumed me. I prayed for comfort and help and I also prayed for clarity on where these intense emotions were bubbling up from.

The best explanation I have is that leaving Hawaii triggered a sense of grief in me - grief in saying good bye to our friends and grief in returning to my everyday routines of life. I have had almost two years of a life that largely feels like I just go through the motions each day. It started because I had to go through the motions and it continued because I haven’t known any other way. There has not been any other way. But something inside me changed as I kayaked and swam under waterfalls and jumped in the ocean - I realized I do not want to fly home to just pick up my life of “going through the motions” anymore. I am going to live.

Ryan wrote in his last letter to me that he knew I would grieve, but that he wanted me to live again after that. He wanted me to find joy. Those words stung and hurt two years ago because I felt like the idea of living a life without him and feeling any joy were impossible. And then I did start to live, in the sense of doing what needs to be done. And I did let joy surround me. But I have not really let the joy around me sink deep inside my heart. But in Hawaii I felt like I stepped outside my messy and heavy life and into who I really am, by engaging in adventures there. I let a lot of burdens go. I lived and I laughed and I embraced joy and excitement. I stepped outside fear, I did new things, and I found a part of me again that I had thought may never return. I have had glimpses of that side of myself here and there but to just spontaneously immerse myself in adventure for a week changed something inside me.

So on that flight home, I grieved the sense of losing that part of me I had found. And somewhere in the midst of my prayers I made decision not to return to a just “going through the motions” life. Life is too short and too precious and too full to just live it from the sidelines. I want to jump into it and I want to fulfill the whole of the personality God created me with. And if swimming under waterfalls brings that side of me out, I just need to find more waterfalls.