Being You Is The Most Important Thing

I’d like to start off with a little trip down (your) memory lane today. Think back to when you were a teenager, or maybe a young 20-something in college or just out of college.

It is a warm spring day, as you slowly wake up on a Saturday morning. You don’t have classes or work today, so how are you going to spend your day? Will you go for a hike? Visit a museum? Meet up with friends? Read a book? Get a facial or go shopping?

Think back to what your day would have been like back then. Maybe you slept in, wandered around town until you found a cute café and ate lunch while you watched the foot traffic. Maybe you’re the type who had planned ahead, and your alarm got you up in time for the boat that was scheduled to take you out scuba diving. Maybe you were already on a vacation soaking up the rays at a resort in the Bahamas or trekking around the streets of Eastern Europe. 

Take a minute and really truly think about what your best days were like when you were a very young, very new adult.

…

…

…

And now… Come on back to today. What was your morning like today? What does this evening hold for you? How about this coming weekend? Any plans?

First of all, are you feeling relieved to be back in the present? Or are you feeling a little sad and disappointed and nostalgic?

If you are like most people, and especially most parents, you probably feel a little bit like you have lost a big and important part of your life. I’m not here to tell you that your life now isn’t great or isn’t worthwhile. Of course it is! Think of all that you have gained since your early 20’s. Have you added a spouse? Children? Bought a house? Made new friends? Started a career?

But all of those changes have absolutely affected you. Go back to that great day you were thinking about. How long has it been since you did that thing you used to love to do?

For me, I love to do lots of things.  I love to read, to hike, to take naps, to lay in the sun on a warm afternoon. I love trying new restaurants, wandering through museums, and having coffee with friends. I love to go to the beach, to go camping, and to go on new and exciting adventures. I love, more than anything, to travel.

However, since I had kids, only a part of that list comes easily. I can still go to the beach, go on hikes, or go camping with my kids. It has a new and different feel to it, but that’s okay. I like to share my joys with my kids and I like the different adventure that it is when I am planning a fun outing for a range of ages and abilities. It takes a lot more planning, but the payoff is fantastic.

There are things I used to love, however, that don’t pair well with small people, short attention spans, picky palates, or a party of five. Somehow reading a good book changed over from something I did daily between college classes to something that is a bit of a joke. It just isn’t the same when little voices are calling out “Mom! I can’t find my shoes!” or “Mom! He is looking at me. On purpose!” Going to try a new restaurant frankly often just isn’t worth the time or the money when my dining companions are complaining about weird food and wiggling in their seats.

Life is all about balance, though, isnt’ it?

I spent my adolescence and early adulthood fully absorbed in myself. I went to bed when I wanted, slept in, ate at weird times and in weird places. I read books and magazines, spent hours watching TV, lingered over breakfast until it was time for lunch, stayed up all night stargazing and pondering the universe. I drove two hours each way to get my favorite tacos, went skydiving, and drove to Colorado to take a skiing lesson (where I learned that skiing is not my thing). I spent an entire summer wandering through Europe, honeymooned in Mexico, checked out Chicago’s architecture, and lived it up at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Then there were my new-mom years. Suddenly I went to bed when the baby wanted me to. When I ate at weird times and in weird places, it wasn’t because I wanted to try sushi on a whim at 11:00 pm; it was because I was shoving food in my mouth while simultaneously starting the washing machine and sweeping cheerios off the kitchen floor. If I wanted tacos, I made them (not too spicy) for Tuesday night dinner, and the only traveling I did for years was one weekend family road trip to the Grand Canyon and a family reunion in Wisconsin.  It’s a lot harder to travel, as it turns out, when you are paying for airfare times 5, lugging a car seat and stroller, and changing diapers in an airplane lavatory.

As you can see, there is not a lot of balance between those two periods of my life. I loved them both, and I always felt like I was doing the right thing at the time. But I think that all of us, as new moms, lose something of ourselves. We don’t get to ease into parenting. We walk into the labor and delivery room as a young adult, and we walk out completely responsible, twenty-four hours a day, for another, completely dependent, human being.

As a parent, there is no sick time built into our contract. We don’t get to schedule days off on the workroom calendar. We can’t decide to work part-time or demand extra pay for overtime hours.

But.

But you have to be you. You have to figure out who you are. Who are you meant to be? What is it that ignites you, excites you? You won’t be raising kids forever. This is a period in your life. You were you before your kids were born, and you will go back to being you, a person who isn’t raising kids, after they leave your nest. But who will you be?

What is the thing that you love the most? What makes you feel happy and alive? What gets your heart racing and what can you spend hours and days and weeks on without noticing how time is flying?

I know one woman who makes beautiful cakes. Another friend loves to run and run and run and signs up for a new race almost every weekend. A gal I met recently goes to a pottery studio regularly and creates gorgeous hand-thrown dishes.

None of those people are me. My cakes look like the five-year-old birthday boy made it himself, I can’t run more than a couple miles at a time, and spinning pottery just doesn’t appeal to me.

What I do love, more than anything, is travelling to new places. I love the planning, the researching, the investigating. I like finding good airfares, reading travel websites, and finding things to do in new places. Even arriving at an airport to take off on an adventure gets my adrenaline going. I can spend hours looking at photos and reading books on a location I am going to visit. I can’t watch a TV commercial, look at someone else’s vacation on Facebook, or read an article about somewhere new without adding it to my list of places I want to go. Each time I take a trip, I learn about more places to explore and my list gets longer even as I check places off. My entire bucket list, actually, is made up of places I want to see, rather than things I want to do.

So I have had to find a way to balance my job as a mom, and my love to travel. Like I said, the first few years of parenting, we didn’t really go anywhere. Those years kind of flew by in a blur of sleepless nights, nursing, playdates, and kiddie museums. I was always busy and almost always happy to be where I was. But at the same time, I longed for adventure.

I have had to make my adventures come about. It isn’t as easy as it used to be. (In college, I once bought a plane ticket in the morning and left in the afternoon to visit my cousin on the east coast for a week). Now, I have to plan my kids’ carpools, cook meals ahead of time, enlist the help of neighbors and friends to cover my bases when I’ll be gone. I have given my mom instructions that literally ran four pages long, just to make sure that the kids got to school, practices, and lessons.

But it has been so worth it. In the past few years, I have been to watch my brother run the Boston Marathon, I rode  a camel in the desert of  Morocco, and I stood on a glacier in Iceland during a preschool conference. I explored Seattle and Portland and Austin. I am now planning and training for a new adventure, ten days of backpacking in the Sierras this summer. It has never been easy to get away, but it has always been worth it. Once I’m in the airport, among the hustle and bustle, I am already beginning my adventure. I feel renewed and invigorated when I am finding my way in a new place and enthralled with learning how the world works. I feel absolutely alive.

What is it you remembered from your young adulthood? When is the last time you did that thing? And what are you waiting for? The world needs you to be you. So get going!