Our Mexican VacationI remember the prior post about France, and how I shared it with my wife; at the time we did not have a child and we were working through a decision tree about whether we wanted kids or not, and how we wanted our life to look if we did bring a child into the family.
I may have mentioned it here before, or this may be new to most of you, but just before we got pregnant, and well before we made the move from Chicago to Chattanooga, mi esposa y yo were seriously considering a different sort of adventure.
The basic idea was that we were both going to take a sabbatical from our work and hit the road (or airways, or sea-paths, etc) and see some of the world. We had been decent travelers before; together we had been to Buenos Aires in Argentina, to several spots in Italy, on a driving tour of Canada (hitting Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto in a whirlwind), as well as a number of spots in the States. And so we thought we might light out in search of New, and Different, and Exciting.
The plan was to blog about our travels, possibly generating some community that would eventually evolve into a business, or a travel advice resource, or at least content for a book / magazine article.
And then this happened:
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| we call this look redneck vogue |
Well, he didn't immediately show up this sophisticated looking, but in the midst of our planning to quit-our-jobs-and-wander-the-world, we got the two-pink-lines-on-the-pee-stick news. And we did what any reasonable people in our situation would do, and re-imagined our plan as a travel-with-baby adventure.
Oh, how we daydreamed for about a week, talking up our ideas for how our child would love to be a world traveler, and how our blog could framed as a guide to other parents: This is How You Travel With Child! And then reality set in, as it is wont to do.
But, here's the thing, I am a big believer that perception informs reality, and that the constraints we see for our lives are largely of our own design. I was reminded of this a few months ago when some friends of friends blew threw town on the return leg of their own travel odyssey (read about it here). They had done something so similar to what we had envisioned, and I was jealous and encouraged and wistful.
And now Meg drops this post on me, and it finds me in the midst of some serious career malaise, and it's making me thing, again, of what may be.
Oh, how we daydreamed for about a week, talking up our ideas for how our child would love to be a world traveler, and how our blog could framed as a guide to other parents: This is How You Travel With Child! And then reality set in, as it is wont to do.
But, here's the thing, I am a big believer that perception informs reality, and that the constraints we see for our lives are largely of our own design. I was reminded of this a few months ago when some friends of friends blew threw town on the return leg of their own travel odyssey (read about it here). They had done something so similar to what we had envisioned, and I was jealous and encouraged and wistful.
And now Meg drops this post on me, and it finds me in the midst of some serious career malaise, and it's making me thing, again, of what may be.
"But, here's the thing, I am a big believer that perception informs reality, and that the constraints we see for our lives are largely of our own design."
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. While the idea of traveling with kids makes me start breathing into a paper bag, it can be done. Go for it!