These Four Walls

^^Lucy, age 9 months, visiting a lake cottage. Where we went with lots of sippy cups.

When I was a new mother, with 3 kids 3 and under, nothing could make me fly into a pint of ice cream faster then a travel magazine. Pages filled with gorgeous meals, usually things like seared salmon on top of a gorgeous puree with micro greens, a glass of white wine catching the light just so, mahogany four-post hotel beds with crisp white sheets, and beachs with golden sand, and a boat off on the horizon.

These things were the opposite of my reality, which was diapers and sippy cups and trashed play rooms, tantrums and teething and mind-numbing sleep deprivation. It was enough to make me fling the glossy pages across the room. France and Italy pictures or articles were particularly painful, since my longing to visit there grew as my love of cooking grew. And if there were cooking or writing classes involved, forget it. I had to pull my comforter up over my head until the din of Dora the Explorer and the prospect of mac and cheese for dinner didn’t feel quite so painful.

Eight years later, we are gearing up for a trip to France.

My mother-in-law can comfortably watch my youngest two, so it will be just the longer-legged, broader-palated children coming with us. As I plan and pack for this trip, I realize that something has changed for me. Yes, the world is a big exciting interesting place. Getting to seeing such an amazing country and having fantastic food is the stuff of dreams. But I am starting to see that happiness is complicated and simple at the same time. The complicated part is what you have to say no to. Dying to the parts of you that want Rome, sleep and stimulating conversation is hard. But the simple part of happiness is that it mostly exists right under your own roof. You don’t have to go anywhere.

My young family is easing into another stage, another chapter, less about sippy cups and more about homework and baseball practice. And happiness now is seeing how interesting and funny and loved my kids are, their little personalities oozing out of every pore, their enthusiasm and sense of humor making me feel less alone then I did in the early days. Looking at them makes me feel like I am already on a journey. With them. With who they will become. They are more interesting – more meaningful – then any trip I could ever take. They are my ancient ruins and my waterfall, my hammock and my vineyard.  They are a terra firma all their own.

I learned that the four walls you are surrounded by every day and the people in them are a much better barometer of happiness then the glossy pages of a travel magazine. The crazy dance parties while you wait for spaghetti to boil, the snuggles first thing in the morning with chocolate milk cups and lovey blankets, reading one more board book when you are bone tired but you still notice your toddler belly laugh again and again at the snake behind the flap in their favorite lift-the-flap book. These things sit just a little deeper in my heart then Minding the Gap and tasting French butter.

They don’t have a brochure for parenthood. There are no travel agents for being a mother. Your itinerary may look the same on the surface of everyday, but if you look closely, there are new, spectacular things happening right under your nose. Their first bike ride, the rosiness in their cheeks after they’ve been playing in the yard, when they eat lobster with you or ask you about infinity or how crayons are made. It’s magic.

The rituals of your every day life, in the same old surroundings with Lincoln logs and Cheerios scattered on the floor more days than you care to admit, are happiness within the strain. Joy within the fatigue. It is hard to see. But the ordinary life stuff might just be better then the trip of a life time, when all is said and done.

Love is its own destination.

**We won staying at a house in Dinan, in the Brittany Region, at an auction for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and the money we spent will go to fund the medicines they are researching to extend their time with their families and improve their quality of life. If you want to learn more about this cause, click here.