"How was your vacation?" Dad asked.
"Hot," I replied, and then immediately regretted it. We just had four days away as a family in our nation's capital, and what I chose to emphasize was the fact that it was really hot? What is wrong with me?
I'm the same person who's spent time being envious of other people's vacation photos, thinking, "They look so happy!" Of course they do. No one posts a picture of their exhausted and sweaty family bickering over what to have for lunch or what museum to visit next. Every trip has its low points and its high points.
What matters is what we choose to remember. What we choose to emphasize. What we choose to tell. And what we choose to leave out. Sometimes we don't have to tell the whole truth. Not that we pretend everything was great. We just focus on the parts that were.
So when I think about our vacation, I'll remember the joy the kids experienced each time we rode the Metro, the fun of so many yummy meals out and watching TV together each night, the unexpected delights of the Mount Vernon Visitors Center and the USDA cafeteria and the International Spy Museum, and the wonder of so many nationalities and languages and religions and colors and races and backgrounds all in one place.
And the next time someone asks,"How was your vacation?" I'll know just what to say.
"Great."
Photo by Kelli Dougal on Unsplash