This weekend was Easter weekend, which has carried different meanings for me throughout my life. Having grown up in a devout Catholic household, it signified the period of time where Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross for humanity’s sins, only to resurrect a few days later. It was an aspect of the Bible that I came to know quite well as a child, with religious movies representing Christ’s resurrection playing on the television all weekend and frequent sittings at our local church (sometimes more than one church). As I grew into adulthood and Catholicism’s hold on me released, I slowly forgot about Easter weekend. Hell, I didn’t even get to see it as a long weekend since, as a police officer, statutory holidays meant nothing for my work load.
In recent years, I’ve been lucky in the sense that I get that additional day off, making for a three-day weekend. That can be nice, especially from the standpoint of getting some additional rest. However, as I grew into parenthood, I came to realize that the weekend also came to symbolize bunnies, chocolates, candies and egg hunts. Having grown up with Type-1 Diabetes means that I didn’t experience most of those things as a child. One would think that this would mean I would enjoy going through it with my children but things of that nature are often less fun when you have to be the adult who cleans up after everything that’s done to entertain one’s children. Although I do very much enjoy the Easter jelly beans I received. They’re good times… But I digress…
Typically, my family would travel up to my in-laws, as they’re the only family we have nearby. With my family being all the way in New Brunswick, my wife’s parents are usually the host of our holiday travel plans. We’ve been pretty lucky in the fact that we’ve been the only ones who not only live afar and require accommodation when we travel but also have children. This means Grandma and Grandpa would not only receive the pleasure of our company but get to see their grandchildren for any given holiday weekend, as well. But as life moves forward, families expand and not only are two of my wife’s siblings married now, they also have children of their own. The conundrum this causes is that, much like at my mother’s home in New Brunswick, there is no longer any room to accommodate everyone.
Although getting together as a family is still important, not only over the holidays but as a general practice, fitting that number of people into one residence is not only impractical but can cause friction that one should not have to deal with over a holiday visit. With that in mind, my wife and I took things in a different direction this year and sent our oldest son, Nathan, up to stay with his grandparents for the long weekend. My sister-in-law was travelling through Regina on a trip of her own and offered to bring him up on her way back. He left last Friday and is scheduled to be picked up by my wife tomorrow while I’m at work.
With only one child to entertain and the fact he’s a toddler and doesn’t care where we go, we spent the weekend browsing designs for the bathroom renovation we should be starting soon. We took the opportunity to eat out a couple of times, one of those meals was at my favourite eatery: FatBurger. I consider myself to be a bit of a burger connoisseur and FatBurger has the best damned Mushroom Swiss burger I’ve ever had in my life. I had the opportunity to catch up on a significant amount of laundry and we even changed things around slightly in the living room. As an added bonus, I took today off as an extra day, although I know myself well enough to know I’ll likely check work later.
All in all, it’s been a pretty good and quiet long weekend. Tomorrow, I get to start back at a fresh new office as my location has changed. That should be an all-new adventure. It’ll be interesting to have my entire organization on one floor as opposed to spread out across three floors. As with all things in life, there will be some good and some bad. I’m looking forward to see in which direction this new office will tip the scales. Happy Easter to all those who celebrated this weekend. ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 