So… this past weekend I had kind of a meltdown. Shocking, right?

I mean, it was bound to happen soon enough. We’ve been moving at a breakneck speed these past few months. And all of a sudden I looked up and it was basically summer. How did half a year almost go by? I digress…

But, all of this near panic about the pace of the calendar quickly turned into a full on panic about our lack of firm plans for the summer. As you know, I’m a planner. I like to map things out far into the future. I enjoy the act and the process of thinking ahead, even if I’ve learned over the years to not hold too tightly to those plans playing out exactly the way I imagined. The process is the point, and it gifts me with a sense of direction even if the day to day reality changes.

So, I did what any reasonable person would do. I called a family meeting where we would settle once and for all the questions of what we were doing this summer.

Quick side note: I’ve noticed that in my house, I’m the only one who declares meetings. My family, my wife and four daughters usually placate me by going along with them until it’s no longer tenable. This time, it became clear pretty quickly that we weren’t all on the same page.

To my credit, things started off well. Sitting around the coffee table in the living room, I gave everyone two index cards and asked them to write their top two desires for the summer. What do they most want to do? What do they want to make time for this summer? I had the dry erase board in the background and I pointed to it as I reminded folks of their intentions for the year. We were doing serious work, and I was fully in my planning bag now!

Everyone wrote down a few items on the list, and we even had a few shared themes. Most people were looking forward to some type of family road trip that has become our annual summer tradition. Each of the kids wanted to complete a specific type of activity aligned to their interests. My wife and I both wanted some free time to ourselves.

The challenge came when we tried to map out how all of these things would happen. Riley and Olivia had a camp date that overlapped with our potential trip to California. Sloane and Olivia wanted to visit Disneyland while in California, while my wife definitely did not. Riley and I wanted to visit multiple national parks, but I was the only one willing to extend our trip to also include the bay area. Sensing an impasse, I was reminded of a phrase I’ve been using a lot lately to bring awareness to myself.

You know what the problem is? I’m not getting what I want!

Sometimes I say it out loud and it cuts through the tension of an argument (try it!). This time I didn’t verbalize it (though I should have), and instead I started to pout and feel sorry for myself (you know, the way grown men do lol!).

I really wasn’t getting what I wanted, and if I’m being honest, I felt unappreciated for all the work I was putting in to create this memorable experience. How dare these people not appreciate what I was trying to do. I wanted a longer trip with more time on the road to make memories because it’s something that I love doing. But as the girls get older I have to accept the fact that we have competing commitments. Ugh… I hate it, and I also low key love it because it means they’re growing up. Isn’t that kind of the point?

I nearly got emotional as I acknowledged that I will just have to accept the fact that perhaps the things I love doing together as a family, bike rides and road trips… they don’t love them the same way. The truth is, I was just sad, and maybe a little fearful that perhaps I was losing this connection with them. It doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying to create these shared experiences (I still see a world where we do this well into their adult lives even with their families). It just means that there will be more compromise involved. Maybe it’s also an opportunity to discover more of the things they like to do.

On that note, I’ve spent a lot of this spring at track meets and soccer games, and before that, this fall at volleyball games and driving around to various apprenticeships. And yes, I’ve complained a lot along the way about the driving and the sitting in the hot sun, or waking up early on Saturdays and staying up late on weeknights for games… But these are the things that they love, so I’m learning to embrace them too, for their sakes. I may not love everything about what they do, but what I do love is supporting my daughters and watching them light up when they’re in their element.

I probably can’t expect them to return the favor yet, but I’m hoping that one day down the road they’ll look back fondly on our shared experiences and appreciate all the work that went into making them happen. I know I do now when I think about my mom and my grandmother, how much they sacrificed to give me experiences that shaped my life. They had a lot on their plate too. And they made it work.

Competing commitments aren’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a signal of a full life. The trick is knowing how you’re going to make it work. Take a page from our book where we decided to shorten our trip, in order to meet everyone’s needs. You may not get everything that you want, but you can still get what you need. And right now, I’ll take that tradeoff.

SDW3