Mexico With My Kids
Can I do this? I keep asking myself this question. Over and over, about everything I do or want to do in life since becoming a single parent of 4. I wanted to take my kids on a trip. Can I do this? No, I can’t, but I will.
I say this with most things, and then I do it. It feels like it takes an herculean effort, but then I still do it and get through it, and I always get stronger. I don’t really want to get stronger anymore. I really just want things to get easier, but they’re not gonna.
I think I’m really starting to get that. No one is gonna do this for me. No one's gonna save me. No one's gonna take my kids on a trip unless I make that happen. When I think about doing any of the things we used to do as a family; when there was Grant and me, and that seemed like a big deal, it wasn’t.
It was easy. I didn’t know it was easy then. I just knew it was what we did, and what we did is something I could always do. Now, I think of all the things we did, the things we planned to do; when I think about those things, I think, can I do this?
The answer is always no. Then, I seriously do it. It’s super hard. Even though I’m stronger now for it, I am starting to feel that I don’t know if I can handle getting any stronger. This is the part that scares me.
When I took my kids on a cruise for my 40th birthday, I felt that was the only thing I could do. I had to do something. With it, all I had to do was to get on a plane, get to a boat, and stay there. I could do that and I did do that.
Every step of that process, I wished Grant was with me. I also wish I didn’t feel that way, but I don’t know how to not feel that way. I did get there. Once I did then, I had no intention to ever get off the boat.
What’s the point? If I get off, can I keep 4 boys together and in a foreign place? Nope, don’t even want to try that. We’ll stay where it’s safe and where I can have an environment where there are boundaries that I don’t have to monitor. The boat.
That’s where we’d be safe, and getting off would take that away from me. So, half way through, I had stayed true to my plan and we hadn’t left the boat. On the day we landed on the coast of Mexico, I looked out from the boat to the beach.
My heart longed to touch the sand and feel the waves and look into the sky from the beach. I want to be hearing the waves rolling upon the surface of this beauty. I felt it. That ping I get when all of a sudden, a desire appears.
Then I think… How can I do this? Can I do this? What does it mean? Is it worth it? All the questions that direct me to the one I alway answer no to. Can I do this? No. Then I figure out how I can do this.
So, all of a sudden we are getting off the boat. I felt I wanted it. I thought it might be possible. In the midst of transforming I can’t to I can, and then to I will; believe me, it’s all will. I gathered everything I needed.
I also didn’t want to but I did it. So began the process that would create by the end, the thing I thought I couldn’t do, but then it is done. I walked off the boat; passports and ship cards gathered along with swimsuits, towels and a little bit of money…
Off we went. We made it to the beach. When we got there… magic. The boys played in the waves with smiles and laughs and splashing. As I sat there on the sand brushing the sand with my toes, I thought, “This is bliss.”
That’s why I do it. I do it for that moment of joy that comes to break through all the hard and hurt and pain. It is a moment that sometimes happens where there is joy that can be found in the cracks of all that’s broken.