Recently I took a trip, with my family, to the Midwest to visit family and friends, whom we haven’t seen in a year. This meant that we were driving, since our trip encompassed multiple states with multiple stops. A week long whirlwind trip for five in a car. Well, thankfully, it was a 7 passenger vehicle, so we had a little leg room.
We started our “vacation” with a 17 hour trip to Louisville, Kentucky to visit my older brother and his family. We decided to drive through the night, so that the kids would sleep through the majority of the trip. 17 hours is a long time for anybody and it was the longest part of our trip. I learned some interesting things on that trip. Apparently, my daughter has no concept of time and thinks I know everything. She saw a bridge and excitedly asked me where it went. My response, “to the other side.” I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. About an hour later, she asked, “we can’t possibly still be in West Virginia, can we?” Also learned that my kids don’t know any of the words to the songs on the radio, though they dance to them. Apparently, its “uptown funky-munk” whatever that is. And “girl sixty hallelujah, ooo!” instead of “girl hit your hallelujah.” Of course, I didn’t correct them. It’s too much fun this way! This may also explain why they don’t hear me, when I tell them to do their chores.
To be honest, I don’t like to travel for vacation. I love to travel and I love vacation, but not together. I need a couple days at the end to recover from the travel and often that doesn’t happen. So I was not looking forward to our “vacation” travel plans, which included a trip to St. Louis, a stop in Peoria, Illinois, Chicago and Iowa, as well as our initial stop in Kentucky, within a week’s time. Originally, we were going to do the Midwest trip and be back home all in one week. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Needless to say, that is a lot of time to spend in the car, with 3 kids. At one point, we had 4 kids in the car, when we brought my nephew along with us. So we began, expecting complaints of “Are we there yet” or “I’m hungry” or “I’m thirsty” or “I have to go to the bathroom” or “Are we there yet” or “I don’t feel well” or “I’m bored” or “Are we there yet?” And we began, expecting to say “Leave your brother/sister alone” or “keep your hands to yourself” or “no, we’re not there yet” or “look out your own window” or “why didn’t you go to the bathroom before we left” or “does it look like we’re there?” Instead, it was “how many minutes exactly until we get there?” or “this is a whole lot of nothing” (when remarking on the flatness of Illinois, my home state).
Still, it was a great trip. We had a lot of fun, even in the hours spent in the car. (And, more importantly, I had time to rest before heading back to work.) This trip, though, made me think of how we are like impatient children when it comes to meeting our health goals. Whether we are trying to eat healthier or exercise more or complete our chiropractic program, we want the end result immediately. We cave into our cravings or get bored with our exercise routine or get disheartened because our progress isn’t fast enough. Our health is not a sprint. Our bad habits don’t change overnight, as much as we may wish it did. At Crossroads Chiropractic, our goals go beyond the symptomatology that initially brought you in to us. As in our mission statement, our goal is to educate and adjust . . . toward optimal health. So on your way to optimal health,
I encourage you to find the joy in the journey.
In Health,
Dr. David
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