Where You Lead

I feel like I am in the movie Jaws.

I can hear the haunting music in my head.

Da-na. Da-na, Da-na, da-na….

School is starting in one week! Where did the summer go? 

As a teacher’s aide, I start back before the kids and the timing isn’t that great because my first day back is the day after my birthday and that kind of dims any excitement, I have surrounding the 47th anniversary of my Earthly debut. But in all honesty, I know it’s time. 

I like routine and structure and there hasn’t been any of that lately. It took me weeks to get into summer vacation mode and then I was swallowed by a snowball of activity and here we are. August. We've landed in my favorite of all months and I’m still trying to enjoy every last minute. 

It seems a little odd that at this age, I still get revved up about my birthday and for that I blame my parents. They always made our birthdays a big deal and that has spilled over into my adult life and has been sprinkled over my children. You get one day a year that is all your own and during the course of 365 days, that is something to covet. 

I already know where I want my birthday cake to come from and the 100-year-old bakery in McKeesport does it up right. But this year, I wanted something more. I needed something more. I had to get away. 

Sometimes my gut leads me on a path that one wouldn't normally wouldn’t take. You know that little voice in your head that doesn’t go away until you listen? Really listen. Like Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams. “If you build it they will come.” My voice said, “If you book it you will go.” And that is what I did. 

It was killing me that my oldest was traveling out west performing on stages that I couldn’t see. We’ve never missed any of his performances and even though I knew this time would come eventually the Mama Bear in me couldn’t let it go. I wanted to be a part of it. And my inner voice wouldn’t let it go. 

I booked a flight to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Yes, my exotic travel destination was the cheese state, which seems so appropriate for me since I can down a brick of Havarti during an episode of The British Baking Show but don’t judge. I landed in Wisconsin and drove to the Tamburitzans show in Michigan just a few hours away. What in the world did I do?

It all goes back to the voice. It just wouldn’t go away and while the thought of getting on a plane gives me all sorts of anxiety, Facebook provided the salve I needed. I’ve got friends all over the country right now posting photos of their amazing adventures. Louisiana, Alaska, Florida, even Turkey...I added Wisconsin to the list and became the spur of the moment traveler I always knew I could be. 

For some reason, this summer needed a bookend to finish it up right. It has been an emotional journey with one kid leaving home for the first time and another preparing to get her driver’s license. There are so many rites of passage going on, I needed one too. And I am so thankful that my husband simply nodded and said, “Just go."

My favorite television show of all time, Gilmore Girls, has an amazing theme song written by Carole King. One of the lines says, ‘Where you lead, I will follow.” I know I won’t always be able to follow my kids where their life journey takes them. But when it’s possible, I want to be there. Their joy is my joy and since I helped give them their wings. I want to see them fly even if it means leaving my comfort zone and going to unknown lands. (Which for me is the cheese state.)

I’m taking 47 by the horns and making it count because birthdays and summer are things to celebrate. Although my actual birthday will involve me getting ready to go back to work, while eating the most delicious cake in the world, the days leading up to it crossed time zones and state lines helping to leave 46 in the dust. As the author Henry David Thoreau wrote in his book Walden:

“I went to the woods [Wisconsin] because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."