A Bridge to Somewhere

We took a fam­ily vaca­tion up to the North­ern Michi­gan region.  It’s some­thing that is a South­east­ern Michi­gan rite of pas­sage. You go “Up North” which can really be any­where in the State there is water and you are at least 3 hours away from the city.  I’d gone as a kid a cou­ple times, Hubby many times more (he has extended fam­ily they’d visit) & now we’ve taken many trips together both before & after kids.

Let me tell you, I never dreamed when we we’d travel sans kids that we’d be trav­el­ing around the area with 4 kids under 7 in tow. Know­ing at least two of those kids is on the autism spec­trum & trav­el­ing becomes some­thing akin to a three ring cir­cus.  I’m pretty sure that my “before kids” self would have looked at you with a cer­tain pan­icked awe, the same pan­icked awe that you’d see cross my face  if some­one was to tell me the Sec­ond Com­ing was tomor­row.  Because while I believe I was hop­ing for a lit­tle more time before meet­ing my maker.  I mean I HAVE THINGS TO DO GOD!  It’s sort of the same thing when I think about being 31 (almost 32) with gray hair, wrin­kles crin­kling around my & 4 kids packed into a mini-van for some fam­ily fun.  There’s a pan­icked awe that sets in on a trip like this.

Still I can eas­ily say hands down that it’s beau­ti­ful there.  I mean truly beau­ti­ful, like I want to run up and have some­one adopt me so I can wake up & see lake views every day.  The kids also kept talk­ing about how beau­ti­ful it was to sit and watch the water.

The first day we stopped off in Mack­inac on our way to spend some time out­side Tra­verse City.  The Mack­inac Bridge there was once one of the longest bridges in the world it has since fallen into the top 20.  But look­ing at it I could see that I’m stand­ing on the edge of what I thought life would be like, what life is like & what it could be.

I felt my Hubby’s hand hit the small of my back. That soft touch that I want to melt into.  While we stood there watch­ing the kids point in joy at the sight of a big bridge I knew that we’ve been edg­ing toward some­where together.  While it, that elu­sive it, some­times tosses us around, bat­ter­ing us, mak­ing us feel lost per­haps as if the pass­ing storm is never-ending  it can also bring us a quiet peace fill­ing us with the warm­ing joy of sun bounc­ing off the waves rolling toward the shore.  A bridge that when fog hits looks like it is going nowhere but in real­ity is a bridge to somewhere.

Tagged as: aspergers, autism, family, kids, mackinac bridge, mackinac city, Marriage, michigan, northern michigan, parenting, vacation