There’s a restorative quality in the act of travel. It may take your money and drain your energy, but when it’s all said and done, travel is like a best friend that knows exactly what your heart is yearning for.
where it all started.
I grew up traveling. My dad was a contracted computer consultant from the time I was about six or seven years old until shortly after I started high school. The contracted nature of his position meant he moved around a lot – and we were fortunate enough to not only get to go visit him fairly often, but also explore new and exciting places.
From my childhood hometown near L.A. in California, we’d fly out to Miami, Michigan, Niagara Falls, Key West and even the Cayman Islands. Each time was a new adventure, a new experience, a whole new world that was opened up. A good portion of my childhood was spent with my nose pressed against the window of an airplane, watching the wisps of moisture that collected into clouds float by on the other side of the plexiglass. It was in those early years of my life that I truly began to appreciate what traveling meant and what it had the power to do.
the reality of travel.
Fast forward to present day. The reality of travel is that it’s expensive, it’s exhausting and, especially with a baby, it can be pretty stressful. Our recent trip to Bermuda was our first time flying as a family of three. Fischer had previously been on three lengthy road trips beforehand. But there’s something about being cooped up on an airplane for three hours with hundreds of other people that had me sweating bullets beforehand.
He ended up having a 15-minute meltdown where he screamed bloody murder because he couldn’t get comfortable an hour and a half after nap time. But once I finally got him to sleep in my arms, I took a look at the people sitting around us. Nobody was staring, nobody was complaining. Everyone had headphones in watching something or listening to music. Then, the sweet old lady on the other side of our row leaned over, smiled warmly and said knowingly, “don’t worry. It’s okay.” It dawned on me in those moments that everything was okay. That we weren’t the only ones who’d ever traveled with a baby. And that, considering, Fischer was doing a phenomenal job.
For a couple of different reasons, this vacation felt different from any I’d ever taken. I found myself getting homesick about halfway through the week. Not because we weren’t having an amazing time. Not because I wasn’t grateful for the opportunity to travel. I found a sense of homesickness budding from one thing: gratitude.
I know, it seems a little counterintuitive. There I was on a beautiful island, getting to explore. I was enjoying the sun on my shoulders for the first time since before Fischer was born. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel anxious to get back to the routine, the familiar, the ordinary.
restlessness.
Before we left on our trip, I’d been feeling restless. My days are essentially spent doing the same things over and over again. There’s a constant pull from several different directions. I’m a full-time mom and wife, a freelance writer, part-time blogger and contract editor. I’d been feeling stagnant even while all of these piece parts have been moving around me. I couldn’t help but feel deep down like maybe I was missing out on something. Social media is an awesome thing. But it can deliver a healthy portion of comparison that can suck the life out of you. I think that’s where I was before our trip. I felt like going to this exotic place would erase those feelings. I thought it might make me feel, for lack of a better word, ‘cool’ again.
Well, it did do that, just not in the way I expected.
homesick.
As we were going about our days on vacation, in the back of my mind I kept picturing what we’d be doing if we never left. In the mornings, while we were sitting on the porch of our hotel having breakfast, I imagined how much simpler it would have been to be in our own kitchen. As I placed Fischer in the hotel-provided highchair and fed him the store-bought baby food we brought, I felt a pang of desire to be standing at our kitchen counter feeding him homemade purees and sipping coffee I’d made from my espresso machine.
Sound a little silly? Maybe it is. But the point is this: being away from home made me realize just how much I was grateful for. Although my day-to-day, at times, can seem mundane, being gone for a week made me realize that I actually love it. I love my routine. I love being woken up by baby babble on the monitor and walking into the nursery, throwing open the curtains and retrieving my son who’d just gotten a good night’s sleep in his own crib. I enjoy planning our meals and cooking in our kitchen with a glass of wine close by. I love sleeping in my own bed and waking up to the smell of coffee. I’m grateful for the opportunity to earn a living from the couch, or kitchen table or heck, even my bed.
a shift in perspective.
Although all of that was never gone – we were just on vacation – it brought to mind an old adage. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. I stepped off the plane having touched back down in Atlanta and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, of gratitude and excitement. It was all the feelings I used to get when I was landing in a foreign land.
Maybe it’s me getting older, or maybe it’s because I’m now a mom. Maybe it’s simply because I love what I do or where I live. But how cool is it that I get more excited to get back to my everyday life than I do to go live a temporary one elsewhere? When I stop to think about it, I think it just says so much about how fortunate I am to have what I have. For the life I was blessed with, for the things I’ve worked for, accomplished and persevered through. The hard things become purposeful, the mundane becomes meaningful and the routine becomes a new kind of delight.
I really don’t think anything has the power to restore your perspective the way travel does. So, if you find yourself feeling off – if you ever need a shift in perspective – I encourage you to go. Get out of the house and away from your routine. I’d put money on the fact that you’d realize the importance of travel.
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