[Written on return from holiday in 2008]
My first brief mention on arrival back from holiday has to be a cursory apology to the owners of the Mediterranean for the substantial amount of their sea which is now missing on account of one or other of my sons drinking it. But such is life, and I'm sure some other child has replenished the missing fluid with wee by now anyway.
It's been a while since I really went to the sea properly (I regret to inform residents of Barry Island that the chips-and-gravy off their shore does not count) and going to the sea with kids is really quite different to going without.
I used to like the idea of being able to strike off from the shore, swimming confidently out, floating over gigantic waves as the whim took me, and generally mimicking a piece of driftwood in a relaxed and aimless fashion. The fact that I seldom went out of my depth is I hasten to add, entirely academic.
So imagine my dismay on discovering that I would be forced to abandon such tranquil activities on account of one little boy who was scared of waves (Dominic) and another who refused to wear armbands (Oliver, for those who had lost track already) - each intent on drowning the other.
Initially I was quite annoyed until I asked myself the obvious question. Would I rather not have them there? Of course I wouldn't. They're adorable, and I wouldn'd be without them for anything - cerainly not for the simple chance to float a little further. That simple realisation put my annoyance in perspective, and brightened my whole holiday.
It reflects in some way a conversation I had with a friend recently. He is single with no kids. Married people with kids sometimes tell him how lucky he is for that freedom. He's not so sure. It boils down to the fact that we see so very easily what other people have that we don't (be it kids, or be it freedom, or be it any one of a thousand things we all seem to want) and what we used to have, but don't any more. The grass is always greener on the other side - and presumably for holday-makers, the sea is always bluer.
We have an innate tendancy to let this block us from seeing what we do have. At any given time God gives us more blessings than we can imagine. They're just not always the same blessings we think we want, and some blessings appear to be mutually exclusive.
Personally, I find it easier to imagine that heaven will work differently in this respect. And it doesn't actually matter whether I'm right or wrong, because once I get there I'll be so blown away that it won't matter anyway.
In the meantime, I promise to try to remember the great things I have, and not let that be clouded by thinking about what I don't.
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