It started with curbside tears at our home airport. Honestly, I was surprised at myself. Earlier in the day my 10 year old daughter asked “Mom, will you cry today when we say goodbye?”

“No, I don’t think I will, Sweets,” because I didn’t think I would. Not because I wouldn’t feel sadness, or nervous about leaving home for 6 months, simply because I wasn’t feeling too emotional and I’d put so much energy into making this trip happen, I felt like I was fully emotionally prepared for it. But that’s the funny part of the human experience, it’s filled with the unexpected.

Fast forward about 12 hours of pretty uneventful travel, we land in the low-key, clean and well organized airport of Malaga, Spain. Once given some time to fully wake up after landing, the kids energy level soared. They were clearly feeling positive about our recent arrival, filled with giggles, skipping in the open spaces as we navigated our way through the terminal to customs. They attempted to read the signs in Spanish, poked at each other with excitement. 

As a mother, one who at times feels the heaviness of disrupting their seemingly “happy” lives by throwing in big travel and “life altering” plans, it gave me reassurance that this may be a wonderful piece to color their childhood. 

But what about me? Why did I have a pit in my stomach? Why was I not blindly thrilled with our arrival as I so often am when I touch down in another country? I wasn’t sure, I just knew that I’d be forced to sit with these feelings until they dissipated, which I knew, with time, would happen.

In the meantime, I’d pull the energy from my kids, reach for the excitement of a new adventure, and work on the logistics to get us from the airport to our modest, little apartment where we’d spend the next 4 days adjusting to life in Spain before the kids start school, and we start “life.” 

What excites me most? I know that travel has a lasting and profound impact on humans. It exposes us to diverse cultures, traditions and ways of life, allowing us to view the world from different angles. This broadened perspective fosters deep understanding and empathy. These are important values to us as we raise our children in this world.

And when I think about giving this gift to my own children at a young age, I’m thrilled that this time right here could provide them with major life skills that will carry them through their own experience as they navigate themselves and the world around them. They’re living proof already that our previous travel has in fact given them resilience and adaptability. 

P.S- As I sit in the living room of our small apartment, up on the third floor, with a balcony overlooking a cobblestone alley way below I sip the coffee from the downstairs cafe and listen to our neighborhood wake up. And rest assured, the excitement in my belly is beginning to brew…