Every morning at the Penny Casa is fairly routine: Caedmon gets up, crying “mama 
mama” from his crib. I get him up and we search the floor for his “bobby” (pacifier) and “mamake” (stuffed elephant) which he has angrily thrown while waiting on me.
I get him up, change him, he yells for milk and starts his obsessive chant for berries at the fridge door. The next part is tricky. You have to give him his bowl, fork, milk and berries in the right order or else he’ll throw the whole mess on the floor.
He demands I pick him “uk” and slice his berries in a one handled balancing act.
All this happens in the first 5 minutes of my waking consciousness, before I’ve had my coffee.
It’s an intense start to every day, but it’s the leg of the journey I’m on. It doesn’t end when he makes his own breakfast or goes to college, my motherhood of my little boy is forever.
I’m spending today doing laundry, packing two massive suitcases, cleaning out our mini van and tidying the house in preparation for a 16 hour drive to Michigan tomorrow.
Honestly, I’ve been dreading this weekend for a while, so much that I can hardly see the beauty of being in Michigan beyond the immense road trip.
However, the simple truth is that the destination always requires the journey, the being there demands the getting there.
Most of us are typically grumpy when it comes to putting in the work of getting there, especially if it’s a 16 hour car ride with a 1 & 3 year old. Kidless road trips are fun, make a playlist, grab some tasty snacks, check out some random road side attractions all while engaging your trip mates in deep conversation.
However, for me, there’s a 80% chance that it may rain cheerios and vomit in my van tomorrow. That’s not as easy to get excited about, but the truth is that the journey will happen, and I may as well enjoy it as best I can.
It’s easy to whine about the journey, the training, the rough draft, but these stages are inevitable, they will come, our true choice is our attitudes.
The more I step back the less I’m convinced that it’s really about destinations at all.
I
f you’re engaged and you get to your wedding, you must soak in all the joy of that sacred day and then start going about the work of building a marriage.
The designation of pregnancy is birth, but then you embark on the journey of parenthood the second that first cry breaks through the delivery room.
Tomorrow we will drive to Michigan, and once we get there, we will soak in the fact that we made it. We will rest, soak in the beauty of the mitten, but we must come home again, the journey forever continues.
Life is truly all journey and those destination moments are worthy of deep celebration, but they always give way to more journey. They are mile markers on a never ending road trip, full of flat tires, scenic overlooks and moments of intense transformation.
May we all be content with our traveling, journeyer status. May we forever weed out the impatient whiner within as we move closer to God and to each other, realizing that relationship is the most valuable currency a journeyer holds.
Thank you for journeying with me, may we breathe deeply whatever simple scenery today brings to our eyes.