The Call to Adventure

"Mom, why can't you go to Spain?  Marta went to Ireland!"
Seriously.  Could my kids ask for normal things -- candy, x-box, skateboards? As I ran from mail room to office that busy afternoon, a trip to Spain remained conspicuously absent from my to-do list.. But AJ had been listening to Marta's tales of  her fabulous semester with study abroad students in Ireland and wanted to sign me up.
"Well,honey, for starters, I can't leave you!"
"Take him with you!"
"Take me with you!" AJ and Marta exhorted in unison.  "Pat says kids can go!"

Seriously, did they plan this?

"Oh, sweetie,"  (I needed to make the rest of my copies, send that email, and complete my purchasing card report before we left campus --to make that doctor's appointment in 45 minutes). "I can't imagine they allow kids . . . and even if they did, your dad would never go for it." In all fairness, if the shoe were on the other foot, would I agree to an adventure that separated me from my 13 year old for four months?  I wasn't sure.  (And, truth be told, my mind was simply not on foreign travel.  I was wondering if I had managed to save all my purchasing card receipts this month . . . )

Like most life changing events, this one started innocently enough. And, note, it started with me saying, "No."

But the gauntlet had been thrown. The car, that great American thinking space, reverberated over the next weeks as the battle with my cautious self raged.  I am not a risk taker.  I like a certain amount of stability -- okay, a lot of stability.  I like my stuff to be in the same place when I come home every day.  In fact, I like my home to be in the same place every day. I like me a little adventure -- a new restaurant, a trip to the city, a new tube of mascara -- but at the end of the day, I take comfort in the predictability and safety of the life I have created for myself and my boys.

And yet co-existent with the hot flashes and the belly fat, side benefits of middle age include greater confidence and an increased reflectiveness.  Like a teenager, I find that I am able, for the first time in years, to actually think about what I want my life to be, and unlike that teenager, I now have the strength and self-assurance to pursue those dreams.  And the more I thought about this mythical trip to Spain, the more I found that I wanted to be the woman who went to Spain and not the woman who said, "I can't." 

I am happy to report that I stopped saying "No" to Spain.  I procrastinated. I daydreamed through all the disasters that might befall me, but step by step, I began moving cautiously forward.   The rest of the "no's"-- the frowns of the nay-sayers and the startling road blocks of life -- amounted to little in the end.  AJ's dad --give credit where credit is due -- agreed that this chance to live and attend school in Spain was an opportunity worth separating him from this son (could I have done the same?  I still don't know).  A million forms were filed, deadlines met (just barely) and here we are -- just weeks from departure to Seville, Spain, and anxiously awaiting the consulate's call that our visas are ready. 

Thanks, Marta! Thanks, Pat!  Thanks AJ!