Sometimes You Miss Your Train by Two Minutes

This summer my mom and I traveled through Europe. If you’ve ever traveled by train, you know they’re kind of amazing… until they’re not.

Sometimes we’d make our connection with minutes to spare. Other times we’d watch the train pull away just as we got to the platform. Once, because of the heat, trains were delayed for hours. Plans changed. Routes moved. We ended up hopping on trains we never planned to take and visiting places we never expected to see.

At the time, those moments felt frustrating. It’s easy to get caught up thinking, “This isn’t how today was supposed to go.”

But looking back, I don’t really remember the delays.

I remember wandering through train stations with my mom, laughing while trying to figure out announcements in languages we didn’t understand, stumbling across beautiful little towns, and realizing that somehow we always got where we needed to be.

It made me think about how often life works the same way.

As we head back to school, there will be days that don’t go according to plan. Maybe your child doesn’t get the teacher they were hoping for. Maybe they forget their lunch, have a hard test, don’t make the team they wanted, or have a friendship that feels different than expected.

Our first instinct is often to focus on everything that’s gone wrong. We replay it. We worry about what might happen next. Before we know it, one difficult moment has taken over an entire day.

The truth is, we spend a lot of time trying to control things that were never ours to control.

We can’t control train delays. We can’t control traffic. We can’t control other people’s choices. We can’t control every challenge our kids will face this year.

What we can control is how we respond.

We can choose patience over panic. Curiosity over frustration. Gratitude over resentment. We can remind ourselves, and our kids, that a change in plans doesn’t have to become a bad day.

Years from now, I won’t remember what time our train was supposed to leave.

I’ll remember taking that trip with my mom.

And I have a feeling that years from now, our kids won’t remember every worksheet, every quiz, or every schedule change either. They’ll remember the people who made them feel safe, encouraged them when things didn’t go as planned, and reminded them that sometimes the unexpected parts of the journey end up being the best stories.

Here’s to a new school year.

I hope we all remember that missing the train isn’t always the end of the adventure. Sometimes it’s just the beginning of a different one.