My daughter is 22 and about to go on a European backpacking adventure, attempting to go to 14 cities and 10 countries in 33 days. I'm thrilled to see her explore this adventurous side of herself, grateful that she has the confidence to go to another continent and stay in youth hostels and travel economy class on planes, trains, and buses, eating cheap food and putting in miles in her Converse with a backpack and a dream. She's newly graduated - the diploma hasn't even arrived in the mail yet! - and still figuring things out for the next phase of her life, but I can see how she is determined to have a life of meaning and hope, to avoid a life of "quiet desperation" even if I'm not sure if she knows the passage by Thoreau. I'm bursting with pride and enthusiasm for her, sharing her excitement and eager to support this grand adventure.
But this isn't about her, it's about me.
She is the exact age I was when I did a similar trip: 31 nights, 9 countries, 17 cities in the summer of 1992. It was a trip that changed my life, my entire sense of self shifting as I explored the world and my own capacities and limitations. My parents actually forbid me from going, telling me that I would get murdered, that it was a foolish idea, that it was a huge waste of money and time.
The "murdered" threats actually made me laugh. I was going to Europe, visiting cities like Paris and Brussels, hardly the dark underbelly of some war torn region or crime-ridden drug cartel run location. But I heard the message loud and clear: the world was a scary place, I wasn't equipped for it, and this was NOT how our family did things. It's true, this is not how my family did things. My family instead got pregnant as a teenager, had a shotgun wedding, and never traveled beyond Canada and the US. My parents never got to try on a bunch of careers, go out late at night dancing, or live in tiny apartments by themselves. My parents went straight to marriage and a baby, and they wanted me to do the same.
But I never wanted that. I saw how it was for them, and frankly it didn't look fun. My mother talked about her unfulfilled dreams with me, and my father's life looked bigger than hers because he was part of big projects and got to go to work with interesting people and sometimes do interesting things, but I didn't want either of their lives. I wanted to have a BIG life, one with music and dancing and interesting food and art and literature and so much travel. I wanted to meet people, to push my boundaries, to see the world and learn my place in it, not because I was born in a place and needed to live within those limitations, but because I had explored my options and chosen one.
I didn't entirely understand what I was signing up for, and while I pretended that my parents' threats didn't impact me, they did. I knew that I was on my own, that if something went wrong it would be reason for deep shame, that my hopes and dreams were foolish, that I was a disappointment to them.
Most of all, I understood how I was a disappointment, that they saw I wanted something different than what they had, and that this made them angry. They were ashamed of my desires for me, and labeled me foolish and selfish.
I went anyway. I had no idea what I was really signing up for - I had done so little in my life, and the small amounts I knew were all from books! I had never been to the movies by myself, didn't eat out by myself, certainly never spent the day in a city exploring museums by myself, and now I was getting on a plane to go overseas, where I knew nobody, where I didn't know much about anything... only that I wanted to go.
I bought a copy of Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and read it over and over, committing it to memory. I bought a money belt, and got myself a passport. I looked at a map and made myself a plan, choosing Paris because I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower; choosing cities in Germany where my grandparents had lived; choosing Edinburgh because it seemed full of dark castles like in romance novels. I wanted to see Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre... but mostly, I had no idea what to expect. I just wanted to go.
And I did. Filled with fear, half sure that my parents were right and I was an absolute idiot, I boarded the plane. A middle aged French man moved to the empty seat next to me and flirted, and I didn't know yet that it was okay to say "no thank you" and then, if that didn't work, to say "fuck off!" so I put up with him until he got up to use the lavatory and the flight attendant said, "Do you WANT to talk to him?" and I whispered "no but I don't know how to make him go away" and she made him move seats. I'm still grateful to her: she let me know that I didn't have to put up with bad behavior, that I could have what I wanted even though a man wanted something else. An important lesson, and I hadn't even landed yet.
As I recall it, 33 years later, the rest was magic.
I wept as I visited my childhood friend Anne Frank's house (because the children of literature were my friends - weren't they yours, too?). I accidentally wandered into the red light district in Amsterdam, and my eyes opened to a whole new world. I slept in horrible bunk beds using my pre-purchased hostel sheets, and I met people from all over the world; in Marseilles I went out to dinner with two girls from Mexico, a girl from Spain, an Australian man, and a German boy in addition to a college kid from Florida. We shared travel stories and tips - have you been here? Oh, don't eat that it's so gross... try this instead! - and laughed and connected, sure in our commonalities because here we were, young and alive and living life to the fullest on our tiny budgets.
I learned that I really don't like Picasso, but the Impressionists were just as wonderful as I'd hoped. I felt something sacred in a cathedral in London. I got sexually harrassed at Hoffbrau House (when I shouted at the man who grabbed my ass as I walked by, he just shrugged and said it was a beer house, what did I expect?) and I'm indignant about it to this day. I slept on a three masted schooner in Stockholm, and I took a Rhein River cruise (I can still hear "On your left, the Lorelei!" in the accented English of the guide). I saw Hamlet's castle, and Buckingham Palace, and the Mona Lisa and the Copenhagen mermaid statue.
But most of all, I saw myself. I saw that I was brave and adventurous, and that I had capabilities beyond my own understanding. I could show up on a night train in the early morning, find a place to spend the night, convert my money, get breakfast, make friends, and then stand in front of a wonder (architecture, or a vista, or a town square, or a painting) all before 10am, filled with freedom and energy.
I learned that I was likeable, that I could make friends with ease, and that there were lots of people out in the world like me, and that I wasn't crazy or alone to want the things that I wanted. I learned that some people didn't see these trips as a really big deal, because everyone they knew did them. My family didn't care much about music, art, literature, or architecture... but the world was filled with people like me who took absolute delight in them. I learned about workers rights through striking, and the different politics of different countries. I learned what people thought about Canada, and about America, as I met people from all over the world who opened up to me, and as I traveled from country to country.
I learned that a baguette with brie, cucumber, and tomatoes, purchased from a street vendor and eaten in a train station, could be the best food in the world. I learned that I would go without sleep gladly, taking regular seats on night trains so that I didn't have to pay for a hostel, was totally worth it if it meant I got to see something new and wonderful in exchange.
I learnt that I was strong, capable, and worthy of these adventures.
Life took so many twists and turns after that: I married the wrong person, and instead of the life of travel I thought I had claimed, I didn't leave North America for more than two decades. Cancer and divorce made my life small again, as I did the things that needed to be done to just keep the wheels turning... but I've never forgotten the lessons. I'm brave. I'm strong. I'm filled with adventures. Art, music, and literature matter. I can make friends anywhere. I am a born adventurer. I can put up with some discomfort if it means that I get to really live.
I tried to teach my daughter these things, too, even if I couldn't gift her with travel from an early age. I took her to local museums (more and more against her wishes, but I tried!) and we went to concerts. We dreamed of travel together, talking about "one day..." even though we didn't know if that day would ever come.
A few years ago, a family wedding from a beloved member, and I scrimped and saved and we went to Italy. It was just as good as I'd hoped - maybe better! We went to places I'd been before, and places I'd only dreamed of. We ate focaccia and pesto pasta and pizza, and we strolled through piazzas. We marveled at Botticelli and the statue of David, and we delighted in the duomos in Firenze and Siena. I saw it in Tessa's eyes - she felt it too, the wonder and awe and excitement of it.
And now she is 22, the age I was on my backpacking trip, and she's going to do the same things I did, but in her own way, on her own schedule, and her own sets of experiences. Eurorail isn't as much of a thing as it used to be - the short plane flights are so cheap, and I guess night trains are a thing of the past. (Reminder to self: re-watch Before Sunrise to relive all of this!) But she will travel light, alone, and stay in youth hostels. She will find adventures, and find out who she really is, and she will dream big dreams. I'm doing everything I can to show my support: buying her airfare, and helping her choose her routes, taking her to the Rick Steves' store to buy travel items and to chart her course. We're reading guidebooks together sometimes, saying "did you know?" and "isn't this cool?" and she asks me a million questions and I give her advice that is 33 years out of date and then we laugh about it and try to find something a bit more current.
(No night trains. Huh. Who'dathunk?!)
And the thing is... this just brings it all back for me, at exactly the right time.
Tessa's graduation from college has done something to me that I wasn't expecting. This feels like the first time since my twenties that I get to be an adventurer, too, taking care of myself and nobody else. Tessa is raised, for better or for worse. It is the great joy of my life to be her mother, but now is a transition to something new in my life where my primary role is to be myself, not to be her mother.
What a strange sensation!
I believe that it is a parent's job to carry their children (metaphorically) on their backs to adulthood, showing them the path and taking them as far along as they can go. But with graduation, Tessa is unfolding her wings and launching into the world, ready to fledge the nest and explore on her own, to create her own nest, to come up with her own plans. I've done everything I can to raise her well, but for better or worse, now it's her time to fly.
She's flying: getting on a plane(s) to forge her own path, to have her own adventures. She's sure that this is what she wants, determined to see everything she can see.
And as she launches, I feel my own lightness of being. She's not on my back, she's out exploring the world, and though I do NOT consider her a burden (she was my choice, through and through), I notice the new lightness. Carrying someone is hard work, and I am so much lighter - it is so much easier to move! Financially, physically, spiritually... it is time for me to look inward and say, "what do I want?" and not "what does she need?" and I can proceed accordingly.
Well, it was very clear to me as her trip started to take shape that I have incredible FOMO, and that my jealousy that she would be having these huge adventures was because I want adventures too. But this time....
I can. I will. I AM!
I booked myself a week long trip during mid-winter break. I'm going to London - a place I only went for twelve hours on my trip! - and I'm spending 8 days. I have tickets to Stonehenge, and the musical Six, and the Florence + the Machine concert. I'm going to visit the Jane Austen Center, the Bodliean Library, the British Library. I'm going to have afternoon tea and cream tea and just tea. I'm going to sit in pubs, and I'm going to go to museums (though my great debate is whether I go to the British Museum, full of stolen antiquities).
I'm going! It's booked, an investment in myself. It's the off season and everything is cheaper, and I'm staying in a decent hotel in the heart of things, still very inexpensive but a far cry from youth hostels. I'm going to wear my wool coat and carry an umbrella; I want to be a little bit sophisticated, not a train hopping twenty-something. No more night trains, I've decided to stay in the one hotel and use it as a launching pad for other adventures (Oxford, Bath, Paris?), enjoying the comfort of not having to haul a bag and of getting to know an area.
Because I'm going back. I'm not going to travel once a decade, I'm going to do it at least once a year. Eight days isn't nearly long enough for London, so I'll return soon enough. If I don't take the chunnel to Paris for the day, I'll just do a trip to Paris another time.
Suddenly, I've reconnected with all those feelings of being 22, of remembering that the world is vast, and that I'm just beginning, and that adventures await because I am a born adventurer.
I found my old travel journals (not hard, filed by year in a bookcase in my study), and I read a couple entries today, and I thought, "Oh! That's me!"
I've changed (oh, the drama about silly men that I allowed; I gave them my power too easily, not realizing that I was powerful beyond my imagination), but I'm still the same. Suddenly, I'm 22 again, willing to scrimp and save to go on trips, sure that the adventure is what I'm born to do.
And I am.
Tessa's graduation is a graduation for both of us. She has completed her education, and I have completed this phase of parenting, and we are both ready to launch. I find it poetic that she will meet me in London for the concert (and for a free place to stay for a couple of days), that we will celebrate her birthday together in the West End with dinner and a play. I find it poetic that we will travel independently of one another, in different ways with different objectives, but that we will meet up in love and joy and adventure, and share our stories with one another.
I don't need FOMO, and she doesn't need my FOMO. She needs me to keep showing her how it's done: she needs me to go on my own adventures too.
I am saying "Go! Dream! Have adventures!" and this is a far cry from my parents threats about what a terrible choice travel was. I do not think she will get murdered, and I hope she finds her own equivalent of a hot Australian to kiss in the moonlight on a beach by the Mediterranean (because THAT is a good memory). I hope that if a rude middle age Frenchman unwantedly hits on her, she'll say no until he leaves, but if that doesn't work she'll say "fuck off" and call the flight attendant over. I hope she discovers a painting that touches her soul, that she finds a street market with the perfect vintage souvenir, that she makes friends, that she is exhausted by her adventures but she doesn't care. I hope she connects with some new part of her own soul, uncovering strengths and stories that shape her for the rest of her life.
I hope I do, too.
She's 22 for another week, and I'm feeling 22 again, reconnecting with the girl I once was, resurrecting her, removing the dust shrouds and shaking her shoulder. "Wake up!" I whisper in her ear. "It's time. Let's reconnect!"
What a time to be alive. How glad I am to be alive to experience this new phase - cancer and divorce didn't kill me yet, after all, and my legs are strong and my heart is thudding and I'm filled with the longing and possibilities of all of it.
Nobody told me anything interesting about middle age, about what happened after launching a child into adulthood. But if someone asks me, this is what I will say to them:
It's your time to be alive. Take delight in what you've done, and then dig deep to reconnect with yourself. They are launching, but so are you, and it's GLORIOUS.
Take the trip. Write the book. Dance at the concert. Be weird in the way that suits you best: join the coven, pull a tarot card, swim in the wild ocean in Seattle in January. Call your friends and share what you're thinking, find out if they're experiencing it, too. Hear your heartbeat, solo after these years of parenting, thudding in your chest, telling you what you love, what you crave, what you desire. Listen to it.
And go. Go, go, go. You won't be murdered, and not you're not wrong for being filled with the desire to drink deeply of all that life offers, to push the boundaries, to try something new. If you're lucky, you can make some of your dreams come true.
Skip the take-out, cancel the streaming subscription, put yourself on hold from any purchases except the most necessary. Use up the wilted vegetables in the refrigerator to make a boring soup, so that you don't waste them. Use your library card instead of your debit card.
And buy a ticket to Paris or Prague, Tokyo or Terabithia, Nigeria or Narnia. Remember what it feels like to be filled with wonder, to feel a song in your bones, to be made to feel small on the precipice of a canyon or feet of a wondrous building or in the face of an artifact that is filled with so much history. Bite into food that surprises you.
Just go. Go, go, go.
It's your time.
