priorities

I had to have Jack to the school at 6:30 this morning to get on the bus bound for Atlanta and his District Honors Orchestra field trip/concert. They'll return around midnight on Saturday night. As we lugged his gear across the wet parking lot in the dark morning rain, I asked him what about the trip excited him. He said, "we're going to Six Flags." I looked up at the busses as he said, "six flags", and had a flashback. I told him that I'd been to the very same Six Flags Over Georgia, on a very similar trip all these many years ago. "What did you do at Six Flags?" I rented a boat and took two pretty girls out on a lake. We had an hour, so I rowed us out 30 minutes and turned the boat around. As it turned out, I wasn't as manly as I thought I was - not even in a boat with two pretty girls - and so the rowing was somewhat more difficult on the return trip. I made the three of us late getting back. Jack smiled at my story so I added, "so the moral of this story is: Two pretty girls in a boat is way more important than what you're supposed to be doing." He laughed, but someday he'll see that I'm not joking. Mostly. I don't remember what I made us late for that day, or for that matter, anything else about the trip. I do remember rowing that boat though, chugging backward and facing my passengers.
A few years later, I pulled the same thing again. I took Allison on the subway to Staten Island. We were very late getting back to where we were supposed to be. But once again, all these years later, I don't remember where we were supposed to be or why. I remember every minute of that train ride beneath Manhattan with the love of my life.
I know that in any given moment, what you desire is likely not to seem like the responsible thing to do. Buckle up. Be responsible. Be dependable. But the truth is, most of those "given moments" are just that, "given moments. They pass. No one will ever think of them again. But if you're blessed, at the end of all those given moments strung back to back, the pretty girl will still be there. And as you look back through those given moments, the definitions of responsibility and dependability have somewhat morphed. What's important now? 'twould be a happy man who could say the same thing at both ends of his life. Don't you think?