In 2014, my daughter and I completed an epic summer road trip. We covered 10,000 miles between Memorial Day and Labor Day as we visited family up and down the East Coast. We’ve been road trippers since she was born, but this brought the art to a whole new level. That summer helped to forge the woman I am today.
Starting a family was a huge change to my career and my vision of who I was as a person. I thought that I could raise her the way I wanted and have the engaging career that I always wanted. However, I discovered that was not going to be our path and, at first, I was just so disappointed. I couldn’t see how this new unexpected reality could possibly be where I was meant to be. So I fought it.
I struggled to keep working part time and juggle all of the challenges that come with having only two feet and at least three shoes to fill. In my hours of need, I would put her in the car,and we would drive. We drove to visit family who helped both her and me. We drove so she would sleep and I could listen to a book and feel like a person for a while. We drove to look at historical markers near and far so that we got out of the house and learned a little something. With each mile without meaning to, we became adventure buddies.
Our drives had rhythms and norms that only we could understand. At first, I played CDs of my favorite songs or books borrowed from the library. Soon, she was DJ’ing from her Kindle in the backseat by memorizing album covers before she could read the words. We had favorite drive-thru chains, best restrooms choices along the highway and an unspoken agreement of the ratio of historical attractions to playgrounds. In the car, we were the perfect team and while I was driving, everything else felt ok.
The summer of the 10,000 miles was all of these smaller trips crammed into a sunny minivan and just a few months. We are lucky to have family who live near great cities, beaches, and attractions. Maybe for the first time, we really took advantage of that. We went to the beach and not just for swimming and sandcastles like we often do, but we did the boardwalk stuff too. We spent a day in NYC going to museums, toy stores, and meandering through Central Park. We saw off the beaten track historic sites and ate ice cream. These were not drives for survival, they became our adventure.
Looking back on it now, I see the changes as though it is written in a well-organized novel. The turning point in the drama where the protagonist finally realizes that everything she wants is right there in front of her. But in reality, changes are rarely that neat. I did start to see that raising this person I had made and achieving my life’s dreams were not two separate goals. I wanted to raise her as part of my life’s dreams. I was starting to see that success, and adventure, were not defined in the way I had thought before.
The school year after this road trip, I quit working for a while. I allowed myself to read, make crafts, volunteer in the classroom and explore what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have taken advantage of job opportunities as they have arisen; if they fit around my adventure time. Each of those opportunities was an adventure in itself and for the first time I was able to see that.
As the year 2020 opened, I was working four interesting and challenging part time jobs and putting in at least forty hours a week. My husband and I had recently traveled to Europe for two weeks and we embarked on our first cruise with our daughter. I felt like I had found it. My work was varied and interesting and my daughter was often able to be with me to help and see the value in a job well done. While I was not living abroad as I always imagined, my passport was getting a workout. There was balance and change and routine and the delightfully unexpected. And then there wasn’t.
We are fine. I was laid off, but I am home schooling. If you’re ever in need of adventure, please let me assure you that homeschooling middle school is comparable to that trek through the desert on your bucket list. We canceled a lot of planned travel including a dream trip to Australia. My main lines of business, tourism and customer service, look like industries that aren’t going to bounce back quickly in the re-opening. Once again, I am facing the question: What do I want to be when I grow up?
I want to be an Adventure Librarian. I want to write, catalog and share my experiences. I want to show others that adventures are where you make them. They are books, road trips, meanders through the craft store, trips overseas, and new recipes. Jobs are adventures and kids are adventures. Dogs are definitely adventures. I will read them, drive them, buy them, travel them, cook them, work them, raise them, and love them all with you.