If you’re a kid in KC, it’s been the winter of your wildest dreams. Virtually every other day has been a snow day it seems.
I don’t think our kids have gone a full week since Christmas break.
A few weeks ago, Brooke was out of town for a few days visiting her sister. I had big plans to get the kids to school each day, work super hard while they were gone, then grab them after school.
Turns out one of those days ended up being one of the many snow days they’ve had this winter.
Actually, it had far less to do with snow and almost everything to do with a blanket of ice across the entire city and the subzero temps.
I love the you know what out of our kids, but with Brooke gone and having five of them hanging around the house all day, I had to get out.
So we grabbed some food and hit the 6:40 showing of the new Mary Poppins movie. Real manly, I know.
We rolled in at 6:50ish, thinking we’d maybe miss a few minutes of the show and worse, miss out on the best seats.
Turns out we were literally the only ones in the movie. 6 of us, in the far back row, the entire place to ourselves.
The winter of childhood dreams continued.
I’m sure it’s on video surveillance somewhere, but the movie theater turned into somewhat of a playground during a few of the songs I’m ashamed to admit.
Some dancing in the aisles, some running side to side in the walkway, some loud singing and some other shenanigans.
The energy had to get out somehow, they’ve been cooped up since last year basically.
The majority of the time though, they were into the movie. It far surpassed the low, unfair expectations I had.
One quote in particular resonated with me. I don’t recall the exact context, but the flying nanny said, “You’re too busy worried about where you’ve been to see where you’re going…”
Maybe she was talking to me actually. It felt like it.
Far too often I’m worried about where I’ve been, what I’ve screwed up, what mistakes I’ve made, what regrets I have, what haunts still linger.
If I’m not careful, the “where you’ve been” parts of me blind the “where you’re going” part. Like a pair of fogged up goggles on the ski slope.
Can we learn valuable lessons from the past? Sure.
But do we need to allow where we’ve been cloud our view of where we’re going? Surely not.
Where are you going? Keep going there, fight like hell for it.
And don’t worry so much about where you’ve been. It will hold you down if you let it.
Mary told me so.
