Confessions of Failure

I am often overwhelmed with feelings of failure. Most of my family, when hearing that, will generously argue against the truth of those feelings and remind me of my many successes. God has worked many good things through my life, blessings to me and my family. Nonetheless, the feelings are there. Feelings often have no foundation in reality, but are based on emotions, so wavering and wishy-washy. I have needed to confess for some time these feelings regarding our trip. I can't do it on the Our Trail blog because it is too much fact, this is a rambling issue.

I was so wrong about what it would be like on the trip, so wrong. I did so much research, read about so many families that travel; still I was so unprepared. It reminds me of something my dad said to me when we were talking about parenting books. He said that he was never into such books because none of the authors were him and none of them had his children. I would have done better if it had not been for the issue of food. I was completely naive regarding our access to grocery stores. They were not close to our campgrounds and it is not easy to pull a trailer through their parking lots and we had very little room to store food when we did get to one. I know there are solutions to this difficulty, but I was aparently not good at facing the problem in the midst of the crises and I don't care to review my mistakes in this area. We are not planning such a long trip in the near future and if we do again, that's when I will consider it some more. This issue, I think, was the greatest factor in my struggles on the trip.

My greatest feeling of failure, however, is in not taking advantage, not finding a way, for the children to learn more about the areas we visited. As it was difficult to go to stores, it was equally difficult to get to educational information, more so if the information (museums, zoos, etc.) cost money. Everytime we drove anywhere it felt like pouring money down the street with the gas prices. Still, I know I could have focussed more on the information that was available. I know there were things available for free and at the campgrounds that I didn't take advantage of.

I never made the kids keep a journal. It is so disappointing to consider it, I can hardly write it without a deep sense of shame and regret. It would have been so easy, free, taken so little time, but I was too overwhelmed with accepting my struggles and the time slipped away. They have many memories of the places we visited and the longer we wait to write them down the less we will remember, but I am so full of pain over the issue I cannot deal with it right now. I will try to assign it soon.

Jim and Charissa are generous with their space, but we need our own home again. We are determined to not get in over our heads financially and that is a challenge. Greg is working in Hillsboro and that is not an inexpensive town to live in. We have been looking for a rental because we can't afford to buy and don't like the thought of being under a mortgage again. Someday we may, if God brings the opportunity. There are some possibilities that we are looking at and we are hopeful. We have been without a home for over a year and we miss our books in storage. The trailer is a bedroom for us all, but it is not practical to make it more than that; not for us. We need a home, not too big, just bigger than the trailer, with running water and a bathroom.

I need to get to the house and help with breakfast. I am not unhappy here. In fact, Greg and I are more at peace than we have ever been. We know that God has a home for us and we will keep looking and waiting for Him to lead us there.