We Bring The Weekly Weather

Since becoming empty nesters, my husband and I have embraced the joy of traveling together, making the most of our airline miles and hotel points to explore new destinations. We like to joke—perhaps a bit too confidently—that perfect weather follows us wherever we go, as if we have some magical influence over it.

Recently, we took an adventurous trip to Banff, Canada. I can’t recommend the area enough. It’s beautiful and as always, Canadians are so darn friendly and accommodating. We went at the very end of the busy season for the area. Weather there can be snowy, cold, rainy, icy, or 70 degrees and sunny. For most of our trip, it was the latter. We were able to take hikes in light jackets and eat most of our meals outside gazing at the gorgeous landscape of the area. And as is our nature, we high-fived each other for our ability to bring the perfect weather to our trip.

On one of our last days on the trip, we were at the incredibly scenic Moraine Lake where my husband set out early to get pictures of the sunrise over the lake and mountains. That morning it was cold, rainy, windy, and essentially weather that most people would find rather nasty. And yet again, my husband and I were gloating about the perfect weather that gave us snowcapped mountains and moody pictures of that morning.

And that’s when it hit me – we don’t bring the perfect weather, we make the weather perfect for us. We don’t control the weather, but we do control how we view the weather and the clothes we wear to the varying weather conditions. Why was this such a shock to me? Well, my husband and I are not really known for our laid-back, flexible nature. We both are the oldest child, type A, run our own businesses, and are considerably controlling in almost every aspect of our lives. Why then, have we figured out to make all weather perfect for us?

I’m not sure if I fully have the answer and yet a big part of our response is that we refuse to let something we can’t control ruin what we love to do. We love to travel. We love adventure, seeing new places, meeting new people.

Are we going to let rain and cold ruin that? Nope. We are going to make it perfect for us. We’ll add a layer. We’ll take interesting pictures. We’ll wear snow boots or Yak Trax on our snow boots. It doesn’t hurt that we are both native Chicagoans and have learned how to thrive in almost any weather conditions.

With the shock of realizing that we didn’t bring perfect weather, came the awareness that neither of us are quite so laid back in other situations in our lives. We can both be reactive to things not going as perfectly as we’d like them to with our businesses. We are both notorious for giving unsolicited advice to our children and our parents. My parents just managed their way through Hurricane Milton and yet my husband and I still complained that we needed to control the situation for next time. Which, in case you hadn’t noticed, was us not thinking the weather for others was perfect! I won’t speak for my husband here, I’ll let him write his own blogs.

However, hold on for this, what if I started to treat other aspects of my life like I treat the weather on vacation? What if how my business evolves is exactly perfect for me? What if I trust that the decisions my children make are not only perfect for me but perfect for them as well? What if I made my life perfect for me regardless of the weather and any other variables that present themselves in life?

What if like extra layers of clothing to prepare for any weather, I build layers on my own reactions to prepare for anything that life throws my way?

 Love,