Lately, I've been seriously craving a vacation somewhere warm. This isn't that shocking, I guess, given that it's about 10 degrees outside, there's snow on the ground, and we've still got two and a half months of winter to go. A few days ago, on a lark -- or perhaps just to torture myself -- I priced out how much it would cost, with airfare, for our whole family to go for a few days to one of those "Beaches" resorts in the Caribbean -- the kind where childcare is offered during the day. Um. Yeah. That's not happening any time soon. I can't quite believe that ANY family has a spare seven to ten grand to plunk down for a few days in the sun. But such families apparently exist. If you are one of them, I hate you. Just kidding.
Of course, when I really thought about what going on such a trip would entail -- namely, dealing with two 2-year-olds (un potty-trained, mind you) in airports, on planes, in wet and sandy bathing suits, requiring paid babysitters at night, etc. I realized that what I would really like is to be teleported instantly to a tropical resort -- all four of us and all our crap, plus a fabulous nanny who'll work for room and board only -- and I want someone else to pay for it. Perhaps the federal government? In short, I don't want to do any of the work of actually planning and orchestrating a trip. I just want to be somewhere else for a little while, and have it be perfectly easy. A vacation from reality, you might say.
Five, ten years ago, my need to escape would have manifest itself in an entirely different way. You'd find me haunting the Lonely Planet web site, browsing travel guides in bookstores, researching airfares, making theoretical packing lists. About once a year, I used to get an all-out case of wanderlust. Much of the time, I acted on it. Between the ages of 18 and 32, I managed to get to Jamaica, Ireland, Cameroon, France, Guatemala, England, Italy, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Italy again (honeymoon), the Dominican Republic, France again, the Netherlands, and Scotland, in that order. Not to mention countless parts of the United States. Some of the trips were of the shorter, more touristy variety, while Cameroon was a whole semester abroad, and the trips to Guatemala and South America were solo adventures -- me, a backpack, and my Spanish verb conjugations, trying to get by on a few dollars a day.
I got what I can only describe as a high off of travel. And not just from the destination itself, but from all of it: the planning, the research, the airports, the uncertainty. I thought that I always would. But I can honestly say that right now I have little to no desire to jet off to Iceland or explore eastern Europe or volunteer in the Himalayas -- all things I've wanted to do in the past. I guess it's in part because none of these things would be logistically and financially possible for me now, given that we've got two little ones at home. But the fact is, I just don't have the wanderlust I used to. I like being home with my family. I like our routine. I don't feel that old urge to adventure and explore; to be the "other" in an unfamiliar place.
People always say that when you have kids your priorities change. I always believed that this would be the case for me, too. What I didn't anticipate, though, is that I wouldn't be particularly unhappy about it. I'm glad I made travel a priority when I was younger, but I certainly don't mourn that time in my life. I don't ever look at myself now and say, "Who is this person, with her job and her mortgage and her husband and children, who hasn't put a stamp in her passport for three years?? It's so terribly sad and pathetic!" I am perfectly content with where I am and what I'm doing. Yet, if my 22-year-old self saw me now, I'm sure she'd be shocked. Not at the fact of having a family, etc. -- I always knew I wanted that eventually -- but at the fact that I wasn't also tormented by a need to travel.
I like to think that someday my wanderlust will return. I look forward to taking Elsa and Clio on trips when they're older, and I hope we'll have the wherewithall to do it. I have hopes of doing some (much shorter-term) solo travel again, and certainly there are lots of places I'd love to go with Alastair. But all of it feels quite abstract and far off in the future. For now, I'm homebound -- and surprisingly content that way.
Leaving Scotland, in 2006. I think I sensed that it would be my last time abroad for a while. A month and a half later, I would be pregnant.
