Odysseys

Tonight at 9pm, I found myself traveling across town with my son to buy a birthday present for a party to which he was invited. Crazy as it sounds, this is not the first time I've done a late night odyssey like this. When you know that every day is filled to the brim, I figure it's important to use every moment, wisely or not, to make sure things get done.
 
We came home empty-handed, having not found what we were looking for, and refusing to settle for something else.
 
As I settled back in to my not-so-quiet evening at home, a period of time I usually spend decompressing from my day (and sometimes decompressing so much I fall asleep on the couch), I wondered, had we just wasted an hour or more of our time, time we would never get back? We might simply have ordered online (which we ended up doing anyway), and saved ourselves time and sweat and frustration along the way.
 
The more I thought about it, however, I realized that what we gained in our odyssey far outweighed what we lost. We, of course, got some exercise, as the entire journey was on foot (and scooter), at a pace appropriate for getting to stores before they closed. We also gained talking time together, which is rare in a family of five. And we gained the shared experience of our quest, and the experience of working together, even if our work produced not that much--okay, zero--result.
 
Sometimes, odysseys are like that. Sometimes a journey, no matter how long or how far or how fast, is important just for the journey. (Okay, that's a little deep when the journey is in search of a birthday gift, but go with me here).
 
In small ways, we go on odysseys almost every day. Our assorted quests may not always produce glorious results. Most of our odysseys, in fact, end in a bit of exhaustion and a lot of sweat. That doesn't mean we should never go on an odyssey. Our challenge is to make sure that when traveling, near or far, we find worthwhile sights to experience along the way.