Life's choices

I just finished watching a special on MTV about a guy who documented his year traveling around the world. He gave up his high-paying job in NYC and spent $20,000 in 23 countries over 50 weeks. I spent a bit of my day getting out newborn baby clothes and washing burp clothes for our upcoming family addition.

In this moment I find myself melancholy, not for the path I've chosen and regret, but for not being able to live two simultaneous lives that cannot coexist. Travel has always been a huge love of mine, and I look back at my times out of the country with only the fondest memories. But I think of my little boy sleeping soundly in the next room, and my heart melts.

Everyone always tells you that life is tough; that it's full of choices; that you can't have everything. I know this, and yet I still wish I could fulfill my dichotomous needs of having a family and traveling the world. I know that kids and a husband don't automatically mean I can't have some adventures abroad, that there are ways to make it happen, but traveling single with loose plans and no one to answer to don't fit in that picture.

Do I wish I had done more before I got married and had kids? I really don't think so. I love the life I've chosen and the family that completes me. But I find myself looking around at this moment, and noticing all the stuff we have, and how complicated things are at times. Have I gotten too comfortable in the suburban, family-years, 3-car owning lifestyle that is absent in the presence of travel? I have glimpses into a fantasy of getting rid of most of our things, living out of a little rental apartment, and having the freedom of being mobile again. After looking into selling our house and finding out what a mistake that would be, we are anything but in a position to uproot right now.

Part of my mental state right now, I'm sure, is due to the fact that I'm 30 weeks pregnant and extremely limited in what I can do. I'm not even supposed to fly on a plane beginning in a few weeks, much less travel around the world, and that simple restriction makes it look all the more appealing.

Perhaps what I need to focus on is not what I wish for that I can't have, but what little things I can do now that will at least partially satiate my need for experiencing something new and different, something beyond white-skinned, English-speaking, hamburger-eating Americans. A short, inexpensive trip to Mexico or the Caribbean may even do it for me. I'll keep that as food for thought for now.

Meanwhile, I will enjoy the choices I have made and recognize all that I would be missing out on if I were off traveling: A wonderful husband and a little boy who is the light of my world. These are not small things to be thankful for.