This post is about what it’s like to take a family trip as a single parent. I’m not offering tips and ideas, rather it’s about my emotional experience.
I’ve taken many trips with my kids in the 5 plus years I’ve been divorced, and I feel like I’m just starting to really get the hang of it. Like everything, this is a huge learning. I have taken my family on trips that have low key sucked while others have been great; same for married travel and single travel. Point being, travel is like any other area of life in which sometimes things will be awesome while other times they’ll be disappointing. To pretend like every single vacation is amazing and seamless reads as overcompensating to me. It’s like the whole Instagram vs Reality swipe throughs. Those posts are so popular because people are thirsty for little glimpses of relatable imperfections. No one gets it right all the time, regardless of how much planning, money, and effort was poured into a vacation. Learning how to forgive ourselves is a crucial part of travel planning, especially if we are the only adult. We are trying.
When I get in my head about how I’m the only grownup I’m seized with panic. This could last a second or minutes, but that flash of overwhelm is all consuming. If I’m in a foreign country it’s even scarier. The responsibility can overtake me, and I know I’m not alone. My divorced friends all feel this way. I will occasionally have moments of sadness and loneliness, however brief, when I feel outnumbered and alone in my adulthood. I imagine how nice it would be to have a comrade to help with logistics and planning, help with keeping an eye on everyone, to hold hands with, exchange laughs and knowing glances with throughout the day, shlep stuff, and sit with on the plane. As well as crawl into bed with at the end of the evening to talk and laugh about the day’s events, and go over the plan for tomorrow. I pour my heart, mind, body, and soul into family vacations and memory making. It would be lovely to have someone take care of me throughout the process. I’m not worried, I know it’s happening; so far these feelings and imaginings are part of my single adult process. I used to get hit with these longings harder and more frequently, and they still pop up because they have their true place in my emotional landscape. I absolutely want those things with the right person, and feeling this way doesn’t detract from the complete joy I have in traveling with my children. The more settled I am in single hood, the more I have gotten to know myself and cultivate a true sense of wonder and adventure. This is why my trips have gotten better and better. The more I grow, strengthen, learn, open, and expand, the greater my capacity is to lead my kids to far off lands where we can adventure and explore together. Our vacations have gotten more fun, more spontaneous, and more interesting. We are learning and opening together, and I find tremendous joy and satisfaction in this. I often write a lot how I prefer AirBnb’s to hotels. This is mostly true. In an apartment we feel like we are living in a new place, and I have always had the ability to create a home anywhere. I love grocery shopping, cooking, and setting up shop wherever we are. To be able to create a homey, nourishing environment for my family wherever we are infuses wholesomeness and familiarity among the unfamiliar. It’s grounding to cook them breakfast, have a fridge to come home to, and hang out together in a common area. I recently described to a friend who was also away with her kids the same week as I, of the joyful simplicity I felt from hanging our laundry on a drying rack. I love that my children see mommy rolling with the punches no matter what, and how they directly witness my wholehearted joy and determination in making sure we are all cared for. Without the handholding of the many benefits of a hotel, I have to work much harder to create a successful and efficient trip, and this is exactly why it’s ultimately so satisfying and heart filling. We reap what we sew. As much as I would like to be held at the end of an exhausting and full day, I am indeed held by the pride and happiness in a job well done, warts and all. The days we come home sweaty, dirty, tired, and happy are the best days. I get so much nachas (Yiddish for pride) in watching my kids delight in an activity I planned, how much fun they have together, and how we work as a team. Of course this isn’t always the case; we don’t always function as a well oiled unit, fighting and complaining happens, I can feel alienated and unappreciated if I’m criticized in any way (habit energy I work with), and not all parts to the itinerary are a home run. Again, that’s just life no matter the backdrop. To claim otherwise is bullshit. It’s also more practical to realistically and objectively view foibles, missteps, and uncomfortable moments so we can process them, learn from them, and make tweaks. As my zen teacher says, sometimes we make big adjustments and other times small. It’s all about meeting each moment with intimacy and intuiting what’s required. Being able to be flexible and adjustable in general is so important, especially on a trip, even more so when you are the Adjustor in Charge. Since we travel with our emotional baggage at all times, tensions will arise (imagine if we had to pay overweight for emotional baggage! Most of us would be broke). Travel provides an excellent opportunity to practice patience, leadership, restraint, and discernment in where to direct our energy as parents. Yes, this is parenthood all the time, but things are heightened when surroundings are simply unfamiliar and we aren’t amidst the comforts of home and routine. On this recent trip to the south of France, it was so great to watch my 16 year old son instinctively handle the luggage without my having to ask, my oldest daughter take charge of meal planning and restaurant geography, my other daughter take pictures, and my 12 year old (who chose Europe as our destination) offer to help me get groceries and keep me company when I needed a breather during a tense incident. In this way I did feel taken care of, a reminder that care comes in many different forms and that I’m always being held by dharmic love. As my kids need to trust me while we are away, I need to trust them in return, and returning to my unwavering trust in the dharma was a constant touchstone that soothed my own inner child that, too, craves guidance. We all need help.
I have no doubt that my 5 years of mostly single hood has given the 5 of us the great gift of re establishing and rebuilding a new foundation, as our family has undergone reconfiguration via divorce. My time, attention, energy, and love has been directed and invested towards myself and to them. We needed this time to reground , plant new roots, and learn how to nourish these roots so we can grow together. The more I have come into my own and have invited in healing (and working consistently on it), the richer and more exciting these family times become. I’m so proud that Mommy’s trips have come to be known as unique, interesting, adventurous, and fun. I’m hungry for all of us to gather as many experiences as we can.
This recent trip was full of revelations and breakthroughs for me personally, as I watched my offspring enjoy themselves across the globe from where we wake up most mornings. It hit me how strong and capable I am. This was the first time I had taken the four of them away out of the country, and the stress of not losing 5 passports was enough to fill me with dread and overwhelm. My itinerary kicked ass, and I planned it all on Air Bnb experiences. I seamlessly subtracted and added activities as needs changed. Our apartment host was great and lived in the building with his family, he was very helpful and communicative. On our first morning I had a stove question and I couldn’t reach him immediately, so I googled my inquiry in regards to the particular appliance manufacturer and voila, we had scrambled eggs. We learned a basic sense of where we were the first day, and I felt pride in watching my kids acclimate and want to learn, when they paired off to get gelato across the street, or when they all walked together to meet me at the beach (I’d gone early to ensure we got chairs). I was even proud that I relaxed and allowed them to lock up and walk the 12 minutes to meet me, since my general philosophy is that I walk last so I can watch them all at all times. There was a sense of overall ease that only comes after right effort has been made. When any system is fed and fortified, only then can a loosening occur. I find in all areas that fear, gripping, and constriction come when infrastructure is lacking. We can only relax when there is some form of trust, and this trip showed me new ways in which I can trust myself to lead and guide. I felt like such a badass, though very human with all the nuts and bolts. Once I realized what I was pulling off, a light was instantly shown on certain areas and themes in my life that have been problematic, and how I have been participating in allowing said difficulties to continue in both gross and subtle ways. It hit me what I will no longer tolerate, entertain, or put up with. Essentially it was an epiphany; if I’m aware of my strengths, how can I act in ways that bring me down and are so not in accordance with my inner wisdom and highest good? A light was shed on certain personal and interpersonal dynamics, namely in the way of freedom. I realized how I was feeling trapped and stuck in several dynamics, thereby forgetting I have the power to choose. For most of my life I did not have the power to choose, and so choice as a concept, ability, and right is still new. I’m learning, and this trip was a fierce teacher. We can know things on different levels for years until one day something deeply clicks, in which case a shift happens and space is created. I came home from this trip so empowered. One of the great delusions in life is that we aren’t free. Liberation isn’t something to attain, it’s already one of the key soul ingredients we are born with. It’s something to dust off, uncover, and polish. One of the gifts of this vacation was the clarity it brought me in the way of my own liberation. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought my life would look the way it does now, or that I’d be able to see the world with my babies in such a fulfilling, delicious way. I hope my children can travel wherever they want whenever they want, since I believe we were placed on earth to see it as best we can. However, if they never make it back to the south of France then I know they experienced it in a fantastic way, together with their mother.
When I write “1 adult, 4 kids” I feel like a warrior; embodied, strong, capable, alive, healthy, resilient, excited and expansive. What a blessing to be able to see the world and see myself in fresh ways, and to have my children right alongside me in the process. I want them to witness and know the best versions of me, and to have that maternal love, exuberance, and fortification afford them ease and safety in their own lives, wherever life may take them.
