Knowing how to pivot is more essential than knowing how to plan. This third month in the Year of 40 challenge was June, the last month of school, which encompassed all the end-of school-year activities and parties, the kickoff to summer, and our much-anticipated trip to Yellowstone National Park. I was planning to learn iPhone photography so I could document all this fun and adventure. I anticipated taking amazing photos of geysers, rainbow-colored prismatic springs and wildlife at Yellowstone, which I could compile into photo albums and print into wall art. However, life had other plans in store for us.
Note: This post is part of the Year of 40 series, where I embarked on a year-long challenge to explore a new hobby each month. The first post which explains the premise and reasons behind the Year of 40 challenge can be found here.
In an all-too-predictable twist, Justin tested positive for COVID at the beginning of this month, and I tested positive shortly after. He missed the last week of school and a whole bunch of birthday and graduation parties. Our home became divided into zones of COVID-positive (Justin and me) and COVID-negative (Menzies and Amelia) status. We were masking in the house, eating meals at separate times, sleeping in separate spaces, disinfecting constantly, and all the things. Despite my own COVID diagnosis, I never actually got a break because I was still taking care of Justin, so it was a pretty miserable time. Luckily, we recovered without any serious complications, and Menzies and Amelia never tested positive despite sharing space with us for that whole period of time.
Having just barely recovered, we packed up our car and embarked on our 10-day road trip to Yellowstone, stopping by Vegas and Zion National Park on the drive up. Two days before we were supposed to drive to Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone actually flooded and got shut down and closed to visitors. All of our lodging reservations, which I had painstakingly made months in advance, were cancelled. This was especially sad for me, given that Yellowstone was a bucket list destination. I had spent weeks researching and detailing a day-by-day, hour-by-hour itinerary for our 4.5 days at Yellowstone. But when nature intervenes, what can you do but pivot? At the time, I mourned what felt like a big loss, failing to recognize how lucky we were to not be trapped in Yellowstone during the floods. Also, we were able to take advantage of the true beauty of a road trip, which is that we had the flexibility to change up our plans at the last hour. We regrouped and made new plans to drive through Utah instead. We took the Zion to Moab route and visited all 5 national parks along the way: Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches, and finished by driving north to Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park. The kids loved participating in the Junior Ranger program at each park, we did tons of gorgeous hikes, and we had the best pie at Capitol Reef. It was a super memorable family trip, even if it looked nothing like the original plan.
As for my original Year-of-40 Month 3 plan to take up photography, that plan never got off the ground. I never had the time to learn the art and technical skills of photography. However, it turns out that you don’t need to have great proficiency in framing photos for nature to look stunning. I’m happy with my pictures and the memories they bring up for me. Perhaps one day I will revisit this particular goal. For the purposes of this Year-of-40 challenge, this month was counted as a skipped month. Sometimes life hands you *too much*, and you have to learn to let go of plans, embrace flexibility, and find self-compassion. That is okay. Maybe that is a lesson in itself.
