One of the things I miss most about my former life — my pre-motherhood existence — is the ability to travel. I was a world traveler, and I was good at it. I could get anywhere, figure anything out, arrive in an eastern European country in the middle of the night without a place to sleep, and not feel stressed out about it. I loved the freedom, the excitement, the sense of accomplishment when I ordered a meal or bought a train ticket despite a major language barrier. All of these things are a big part of who I am — or at least, who I was.
Last week I took the girls to Boston on the train with Grace's buddy Elyse and her mother. If by chance you were anywhere near the aquarium in Boston last Friday, you probably noticed me — I was the the one trying to haul a stroller (with my child seated in it) onto the overcrowded subway, after requiring the help of a trash collector to purchase the subway tickets and make it through the scary gates onto the platform. I was the one admonishing my child for staring at the millions of other children instead of at the adorable fur seals we had paid so much money to see. I was the one at the noodle place in Faneuil Hall who shut her kid's thumb in the door on the way out. Yes, I was the one at the 3-D Imax movie whose toddler tried to go to sleep at her feet and whose 5-year old closed her eyes and plugged her ears because the footage of fish snatching up other fish was "too scary." And yes, that was me on the crowded platform at the train station, searching frantically for our return tickets while the sold-out train was boarding.
I happen to also be the same person who chipped her own pieces off the Berlin Wall at age sixteen, the person who has traveled, sometimes alone, to 31 countries on 6 continents. Although that person seems a lifetime away, I have to cling to those experiences to remember who I was and what I could do — and what I have to believe I'll be able to do again someday. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to start small, with more day trips to the "big city" so that I can learn how to function in my new reality, in this phase of my life when I simply cannot travel light. I need to judge my accomplishments on a smaller scale, and be satisfied with the simple fact that we all had fun — and that I had not, in fact, lost our train tickets. They were simply hidden under the extra diapers and raisin boxes required by my little world-travelers-in-training.
Kayaking in the Doubtful Sound, New Zealand, March 2003
Travelingjenny 