The Richards Family

A few of my friends have commented that my posts about our month long travel adventure were all ‘very happy’. Just a few notes on that: overall, we did have a wonderful time traveling together. If any of you reading get the opportunity and ability to travel like we did, with our kids the ages they are, 16,13 and 11, I would recommend it. Now, was it without tension, conflict, anger, outbursts, tears and silent glares? Absolutely not. Did we manage as a family to navigate that, not all the time, but for the most part, we weathered it, talked and laughed through things, sat in silence, and traveled on. I just started reading a book called, ‘The art of pilgrimage’, by Phil Cousineau and these thoughts strike me: “Never doubt for a moment that there will be darkness and disappointment on your travels. The question is, How much courage can we muster to deal with it and move on? Can we transform painful moments into instructive ones? ” I like this. Now, I’m reading this after the fact of this recent traveling adventure, but somewhere, somehow we navigated some darkness and disappointment on our journeying. I love to travel primarily because I continue, during and after each adventure, to learn new things about myself, and those I travel with. There is something very powerful about traveling with family, for me, primarily our children, and see them experience, explore, wonder and ponder different cultures, language, food, people and ways of travel. I would do it again, even though occasionally (you can ask Dave) I fantasized about ‘not traveling’ with teenagers I also intentionally chose to not write some things on this family blog, as they just weren’t meant to be shared. Some of my friends know me well enough that they know I tend to have a difficult time ‘re-entering’ life at home once I’ve been traveling. This is true, and is still true, even though I was ready to come home. I came across another quote that I like about coming home in the book I mentioned previously: “It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot at all realize how strange it will be.” I need time at home to remember where I’ve been, so looking at photos, sharing funny trip memories with friends, hanging up any artwork I’ve purchased, etc helps me adjust to re-entering my life here, in Lake Forest Park. Now I’m just babble writing so I’ll end. It’s good to be home, it’s been wonderful to have experienced the trip that I did with the kids and Dave, and I look forward to many more travel adventures ahead.