In full disclaimer, my kids and I are going back to the Sparks Flea Market next month to hang out with my family. I used all my frequent flyer miles and all our free hotel nights to get us there. They were going to waste and it's not looking like I will be using them for anything else anytime soon...I don't travel anymore.
Would you mind being the bounce board for my therapy?
First, I never have renewed my passport. The money always kept going elsewhere. The cruise I mentioned earlier would require a passport and applying now would probably not see that beautiful blue book back in my hands until I'm too pregnant to be sailing. One weekend I had an idea to fly to Canada and go camping in Banff National Park this summer, or to drive to Alaska to visit friends, but those are things I also can't do without a passport. Please don't offer the advice that I could expedite my renewal. I know. That adds to the cost which has been inhibiting me all these months and appears to be staunchly implanted in my brain as an excuse not to go get my new photo taken tomorrow.
Second, life happens when you don't realize you're looking right at it. For 15 years I've had a personal philosophy that people don't need to settle down until they have children that start school. And with today's technology, that's not even a resolute reason to change your wandering lifestyle if your family is still out there having fun. Five years ago when I had my first baby my ideals didn't change, but since then the trips have become routinely shorter and closer to home. I HATE when people tell me having kids changes things. I don't think it's an excuse to quit doing things. How could I have let that happen to me?
Now I have my soon-to-be kindergartner registered in an online curriculum that would enable us to keep taking off on far-away adventures. So what happens? Life, again. All the money we'd saved and sacrifices we've made to pack up and leave town weren't for nothing. They've just turned out to not be for what we'd thought they would be. Medical bills for new babies and broken arms and who knows what else is to come turn out to cost just about the same amount of money as backpacking around the world for 9 months in bliss.
As for the third and final reckoning in my brain? My husband has decided he likes living a comfortable suburban life with a safely predictable job, all of his hobbies, and extra-curricular responsibilities. He has contentedly settled down. He won't tell me that matter-of-fact, but it's time for me to accept and start dealing with it. How do I know that's where he's at in his life right now? He's quit getting excited when I call out of the blue with a hair-brained plan for where we should take off to on the weekend. I used to jump in the car and show-up unexpectedly wherever he was working out of town, but now he as much as tells me it'd be more responsible if I stayed home and saved the money. He's in his fourth year of a job that was always supposed to be the hold-over until a great new adventure came along, but now he talks about a year from now when he'll be working more in the office and less on the road. The final blow? The year-long traveling life change I believed in wholeheartedly never evolved further than a passing whimsy to be discarded quickly in my husband's mind.
Having now had my equivalent hour on the couch, how do I evolve from here?
I have no idea. Always in my mind are the thoughts that I'm being tested and need to learn to be happy in the moment with the circumstances surrounding me. That it is noble and normal to live in one house & one town with predictable days forever. I feel guilty that my vision of motherhood, marriage partnership, and family life is so different from everyone else. I struggle with wondering why I have to be the one that pretends to be something different than what is deeply rooted inside me. I dread hearing people tell me not to give up on my dream or lose the wandering part of my soul when I don't see how there is any other option for me. I don't want to be one of those, "When the children are older," or "We'll do that when we retire" type of people, but that is exactly what is happening.
That is what is happening to me. Part of me is being buried and the tightening I feel in my chest when I admit it so I can let it go confirms that I've barely embarked on the most challenging journey yet that my heart has been asked to travel.
