A World of Difference

I may be (mostly) at home with my kids these days, but in my heart I'm still mostly a traveller and a storyteller.

I became a writer after having kids, in part to tell the story of their journey to becoming part of our family; in part, to finally get the stories of our life before kids down "on paper." I've wanted to write since the fifth grade. It was motherhood that finally allowed and commanded me to follow through.

Like writing, travel came to me late in life. I never did the semester abroad, never hiked through Europe in that year after college and before starting a job. I started traveling for work, so desperate to see something beyond New England that I skipped my tenth high school reunion to fill in for someone at a conference in Atlanta. Get on a plane, stay in a hotel, eat new food, talk to people with different accents and experiences, see things we don't have in New England. It became addictive, to the point where I sit in my house some days trying to figure out how long it will be until I can take my kids to Seattle to visit their aunt and uncle, or to Montreal to experience another country, or on a Eurorail trip to see at least some small part of Europe.

I will at least encourage my kids to study another language in school, to do the foriegn exchange to Argentina that has been going on at the HS for the past several years, to do a semester abroad somewhere. All these are opportunities I did not have when I was a teenager. And if there is one thing that I didn't have that I want them to have, this is it. Travel changes you. It forces you to grow up. Making your way in a new culture, in a new language, interacting with people different than yourself forces you to move beyond your comfort zone and grow. It gives you confidence.

All my travel these days is virtual. I read travel books and I vist with moms and others through their blogs. Like travel, being a mother changes how I see the world and colors my writing. Blogging started as a way to force myself to write every day, but became a way to gain insights into others who dare to share their stories. It has shown me that regardless of the differences in our parenting styles or our politics, we all want the same basic things out of life. It has shown me a group of women who can support each other despite the differences in lifestyle and geography.

I blog and read other blogs because stories are important. In a world of difference, it is only through sharing our stories that we learn to understand each other and how much we have in common.

Comments

[Jenn]

Just wanted to let you know we got your entry! Good luck!