The ups and downs

After a tough few days, I have been so looking forward to this weekend.  A weekend that is more or less unscheduled and started Thursday night. What more could I want?  Olivia's big request for the weekend was to stay up and catch lightning bugs, which we agreed with of course.  The four of us sat outside, enjoying a cool evening, waiting for dusk to arrive.  It wasn't long before that first little flash came and the chase was on.  Pretty soon Olivia and Eli had a container full of flashing lights.  I love watching them run and giggle, trying to catch the elusive lightning bug.  In that peaceful moment, I flashed back to a peaceful night long ago.  I was eighteen years old and working as a camp counselor.  Our little crew of counselors were on our night off and taking advantage of being kid free.  We all laid out on the side of a hill talking late into the night.  I was mesmerized by the millions of stars you can only see when your out in the middle of nowhere.  Bats began to swoop through the air above us looking for their evening meal.  Someone picked up a small stone and threw it up in the air and bats began to swoop and chase the stone.  I grabbed a stone and threw it and another bat swooped towards it a few feet above me.  It was strange and somehow wonderful.  We lay on that hill "playing" with the bats for hours.  It was pure peacefulness.
With this memory playing through my mind, I asked Eli if he would like to play with the bats.  He gave me that look that means "Are you serious or messing with me?"  I took him and Olivia to our garden where I told them each to grab a handful of pebbles.  Dan smiled at me because, long ago, I showed him how to play with bats.   The trio followed me to the end of the driveway where a streetlight had just turned on.  I told the kids about how the bats would swoop toward our thrown pebbles if we timed it just right.  They were so excited and started competing with each other to make the best bat call.  It was a little annoying but they were have a great time, squeaking and squealing.  Suddenly, a bat swoop overhead and Dan threw a stone up in the air and the bat dove to follow it.  I threw a stone and the bat turned and twisted in the air.  The kids joined in and soon there was pea gravel flying in the air.  We all laughed and ducked as the pebbles rained down, bouncing off our heads, our shoulders, and a couple bounced off the car.  We continued to "play with the bats" until all our pebbles were gone.  I walked to the car and sat down on the trunk for a better view of the full moon just starting to peak over the houses across the street.  Soon the family was all gathered on the back of the car, mesmerized by the huge moon slowing showing itself to us.  We sat quietly chatting and cuddling.  It was perfect.  Eli leaned over and whispered, "This is the best day ever."  And it was.  It was the best day simply because we were there together completely focus on each other.  I went to bed that night feeling content and complete.
Then today came and we found out some plans to see extended family weren't going to work out.  We were so devastated and sad.  It was hard enough to deal with having to go even longer without seeing people we very much want to see, but we were crushed to find out that the reason was that there are too many other people in our family that came before us.  It sounds so petty but I think everyone wants to feel like they are important to the ones they love.  It feels like such a slap when you have to be squeezed in between all of the other family stuff.
Anyway, here's what's clogging up my mind.  Nothing has changed.  Our little family of four is complete and full of happiness.  We haven't seen these family members in ages.  So why do we feel so hurt.  What is it about the human condition that makes us need to feel valued by those related to us?  How can we go from such a high of feeling love and contentment to the low of feeling like that bottom rung of the ladder (you know, the one that no one even uses) when nothing has changed?  Its not like plans were canceled.  Its just that we have heard about this family get together and that family visit so much that our perspective is so screwed up.  We see others who aren't separated by so many miles getting there fill of family interaction, but only from a few instagrams or facebook posts.  We see cousins getting the love and interaction we ache for our kids to have.  We see, we see, we see.
That's the whole problem.  We see.  Every little life event is now out on the internet for us to digest. When I was a child, my mom and dad constantly told me to stop comparing myself to others.  Life isn't fair and if we strive for it to be, we will only know disappointment.   Well, I guess I never learned the lesson because tonight I know disappointment.  And that makes me feel even worse because the One who truly knows me and wants to be with me, knows my value.  He is all I should need.  My spiritual side knows this but my weak human side just wants to be loved A LOT.  Yeah, I'm needed and I know it.  I want to be in the pictures and I want to mentioned in the Facebook posts.  So what do I do?  I guess I write it all out in a blog and move on.  After all, I still have a lot of awesome weekend left.