writing – Birth of Adventure

Fueling and Following Your Heart: An Adirondack Adventure

Fueling and Following Your Heart: An Adirondack Adventure

In spring 2023 I made a decision that surprised a lot of people, including myself. After 20 years of living in Western New York, and 11 years of working for the Girl Scouts of WNY, I was called to take on a new adventure.

One surprise was that this adventure required moving in the wrong direction – I’d always thought that if I ever left Buffalo it would be to move back to Canada, and be closer to my family there. Another surprise was taking on a new nonprofit CEO role, as I’d thought that when it came time to leave GSWNY it would be to consult, or when I became a wildly successful author (this woman always dreams!) The timing was also a surprise because I wasn’t yet looking for a new job and wasn’t considering moving.

But despite these plans, in May 2023, I was invited out of the blue to visit Double H Ranch, a camp for children with serious illness, located in the foothills of the Adirondacks. Even before setting foot on the beautiful camp property, I was moved to tears by the joy and gratitude expressed by children, parents and volunteers who shared their stories on video. Once I’d spent time touring the adaptive programming and property, and talking with members of the board and staff leadership team, the call and pull was sealed that this was a place where I was meant to serve and to be part of.

Choosing to take on a new role with this impactful organization and move to this beautiful town filled with lakes, rivers, forests and mountains was the easy part; choosing to leave the wonderful people of Buffalo and GSWNY was the hard part.

I’ll come back to the most important factor in this equation: this decision wasn’t only mine to make. In 2023, David and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. It was also 20 years since Ben was born and we moved from Toronto to America. In these 20 years, David and I had made a family and home together. The kids were now grown and out of the house, based in Texas and in Toronto, so our moving wouldn’t have a big impact on them. But it would be a big change for David, and for his work which was beginning to really gain momentum.

Making the decision on my part came down to what I’ve titled this blog post: following and fueling your heart. David and I had been talking about our love of water, and of how much we’d love to be closer to nature, surrounded by trees, space, and near an ocean or lake. Ever since I’d met David, he’d dreamt of building a house, and some of our early dates were spent touring lots for sale in the country, south of Buffalo. And although I wasn’t searching for a new job, I was reflecting on when the ideal time would be for me and for GSWNY to find a new CEO to take over.

In my CEO interview for the GSWNY board, a question was asked: “How long do you plan to stay in this role?” I answered honestly, “For as long as I feel that I am the best person for the job”, which at the time I estimated to be about 5-10 years. By May 2023 I’d been CEO for 4 ½ years, but the compounded stress of the pandemic and multiple crises had compressed that timeline for me, and left me feeling that what GSWNY needed was someone with fresh energy, and with the skills and vision that were best for where the organization was now. The clear vision and direction I’d had in January 2019 when first assuming the role was irrevocably changed in March 2020, and I’d poured everything I had into leading and steering the organization through those hard times. I still felt a deep sense of passion and ownership for the mission of GSWNY, and loyalty and responsibility for the thousands of girls, volunteers and staff who were part of it, but I knew in my heart of hearts that this would be a perfect time for this transition, for me, and for the organization.

Which brings me back to David. When I was invited to interview, we watched the camp videos together on our living room couch. He said that he was open to the idea of moving, and encouraged me to learn more. When I came back from the interviews and camp tour (along with our friend Ellen who had been in town and game for a last minute road trip), I told David that if I was lucky enough to be offered this job, that I wanted to take it. When the call came with the offer, he said, “20 years ago, you moved to Buffalo for me and the kids, and now it’s my turn to follow you.”

Following and fueling. And I’m happy to say the kids were supportive as well.

What came next was a roller coaster. Gratitude and excitement. Stress and upheaval. Certainty alternating with doubt, laced with panic. As I shared the news at work, and with friends and family, it felt like the train was leaving the station and I needed to make sure I was on it, and not being dragged or run over by it. What was I doing? I was 48, established, with a great job. Was this a mid-life crisis?

There will be time to share more about the Adirondack Adventures of 2023, but the main point is that in all of the noise and second guessing, I needed to settle in and listen to my heart. And it was telling me that this was the right thing to do.

Gaining confidence in the decision, the notice period was still too short for comfort: 7 weeks. Both Double H and GSWNY were supportive of me and each other’s needs, and I was able to travel back and forth between Lake Luzerne and Buffalo for the first few months so that I could continue to help GSWNY’s board and Interim CEO with the leadership transition, and so that I could find David and I a place to live.

We moved into our temporary rental home November 1, in the town of Lake Luzerne, in a little house across from a park and the Hudson River, a short walk from the lake and public beach, and a ten minute drive from camp.

Hudson River across the street from our rental house

You may be wondering how the new job is going, and how David is faring with the transition.

On my first day of work, I was nervous about what looked like an intense first day on the job. My last official day at GSWNY was August 1. On August 2, the car was packed for the drive to camp, and I arrived and checked into my cabin around 10pm. The schedule for August 3rd was an 8am staff breakfast, camper arrival at 10am, and a donor and board tour and reception at 4pm. At 7:30am I called David and told him I was nervous about meeting everyone. He said wisely, “They are likely more scared to meet you”. Getting myself in check, I walked down to the peaceful lake, took a deep breath, and walked to the dining hall for some coffee and to meet the staff team. Within one minute, I knew that this was an amazing place filled with incredible people, and I felt right about my decision. And when the campers arrived later that morning, greeted exuberantly by cheering staff and volunteers, the smiling faces of campers and teary, grateful faces of parents showed me this camp was magic.

David has been an amazing support, and a hearty adventurer. We were away from each other a lot over the first few months, but have had more time together since we moved into the rental home. His business is still based in Buffalo, and we still have our house there, and he’s planning on bidding on green roof projects in the Capital region soon. (If you know of any contacts for him please share!!!)

And as luck would have it, Double H is less than 3 miles down the road from a Girl Scout Camp -Hidden Lake- and their CEO Brenda and I have had a chance to swap camp tours and my inbox is filling with cookie orders, so you know that once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout.

I miss my friends and family from the WNY/Southern Ontario area, but I’m happy to say that my heart has been followed and is being fueled. I’d love to hear from you, (and host you) and here’s to an amazing year of adventures!

Slow goaling in a room of my own

I’m writing this from a special place – in my “writing room,” sitting at my “writing desk” – a handmade wooden desk that David built for me. What makes this space so special is that it is fundamentally a structure. A structure that if I didn’t necessarily need it, I desperately wanted it.

I’m feeling vulnerable to share this, but pleasantly grounded by this calm space. Rather than write something celebratory, what I really wanted to share with you is that I’ve been avoiding writing this blog for many reasons. One is because I felt like I let myself down. And I felt like I let you down too. I announced grandly my goals for Birth of Adventure, you supported me and subscribed, and then after a few months of publishing at a regular pace, I fizzled out.

Once I lost my regular writing momentum, it was harder to start again. For example, when I returned with a post this past September, I hoped to continue. I wanted to bring you the stories and capture the experiences of our trip to Scotland that originally inspired this blog, but it felt awkward after so much time had gone by. Like I was a friend who shows up uninvited at your house with a slide deck of trip photos that you never asked to see. I was also, as I shared before, just plain exhausted.

Even though I’m not so vain as to think anyone was lying around waiting for the next Birth of Adventure blog post, I felt icky about it. It reeked of high expectations I’d set for myself that were dashed.

High expectations is what brings me to the other point of this post. Hands up if you’ve felt less ambitious this year, felt less driven or you have had less of an inclination to set resolutions, or audacious goals for your personal and professional transformation.

This was the first New Year’s Eve in 20 years that I didn’t write a completion of the past year and set goals for the new year. I didn’t intentionally disregard this annual tradition. I just didn’t feel like doing it.

I know I wasn’t the only one feeling like this. I heard from so many people that they didn’t want to chase ambition this year, for a multitude of reasons.

For the first few weeks of January I decided I was going to reject personal goals completely. No resolutions, nothing to achieve, let life come as it may. But I noticed that I was still inching towards something.

I still want to finish my book. It has a story, and message, and characters that I really want to share. I completed the first draft in December during a writing retreat, and it is a huge project ahead of me to revise and polish it.

I want to feel better in my body, and that only seems to come through moving more, stretching, going to yoga, walking, swimming. When I went to see my chiropractor/yoga teacher in November for back pain, she told me (and this is the truth) that I had “lazy butt syndrome”. Well, actually it was “sleepy glute syndrome” but same thing. My body is physically crying out for me to move it more.

I want my house to be cleaner.

I want to connect more with friends and family.

I want to write this blog, not only to practice writing and storytelling, but as a reserved introvert, I enjoy it, and this is one of the best ways I can connect and share with others.

And so maybe the answer wasn’t in rejecting the goals per se, but throwing away all of the hype and pressure I put on myself around achieving them.

This feels like the perfect moment for a Buffalo Bills fan analogy. Just like Buffalonians watching Josh Allen come out on the field, I have anxiety that I will mess up at the same time that I have illusions (or delusions) that I will definitely win the Super Bowl. In writing terms, I equally dream of publishing my book and ending up on the New York Times Bestseller list and making Twilight level money as I dread having 150 agents reject the finished manuscript and tell me I’ll never be a writer, or if it got published, then selling less than 10 copies and being wildly panned by critics.

And so, right now, in my personal endeavors, I’m trying out “soft goals”. I still know what I want, and will intentionally act on what I want, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself to achieve anything.

One soft goal is to set days and times when I will write – the blog or the novel revision – throughout the week. I learned that one successful novelist has a simple goal to write for at least 11 minutes a day. Sometimes she writes more, but she’s satisfied with 11 minutes. That’s the kind of energy I’m bringing to this soft goal. No hard goal for how many pages, or number of blog posts. But I will show up and write whatever I can accomplish in those times.

Another soft goal I have is around movement. I already enjoy hanging out with my friend Melissa at the Jewish Community Center for swimming and sauna chats when we can, and another soft goal is to sign up for a yoga class two times a week except for when I’m working those nights. My family just started the 100 push up challenge last week. I tested in the 0-5 category (I can do 4 modified push ups, and nearly 1 regular push up) and since that’s the lowest level there is only up from here. There is no hard goal for weight loss or pressure to reach 100 push-ups, but if I master a regular push up at all I will be very impressed with myself.

Tying this back to the beginning, I mentioned that this writing room and writing desk were a structure that I wanted. I realized that when I was stressed I got into a habit of hunkering onto the couch after work and once there, I’d be too cozy or too deep into a TV show to do anything else productive. And then thinking the words “productive” made writing or movement sound like hard work that should be avoided at all costs, even though those were two of the things that would actually have made me feel less stressed. I found I needed to give myself time and structure to do the things that were good for me. Getting away to North Carolina in December for a writing retreat was what finally dragged me to the finish line of the first draft of the novel I’d been working on for 5 years.

And so when David and Ben renovated the guest bedroom/office (our now adult girls’ former bedroom) I decided to think of it not as my home office, but as my own personal retreat space. I asked David for a writing desk and he took great care to build me something that would be functional, beautiful and inviting, right down to the finest details.

And today I tested it out. I’ve spent longer writing in this one sitting than I have in over a month. The true measure of success is that I came back to this room after dinner – even though the couch and TV beckoned. It’s so nice in here, when David popped in to check out how it was going, he got sucked in and almost fell asleep on the comfy daybed.

I am grateful to David for creating this beautiful space and structure for me. And I am grateful to you for reading. If you related to anything I shared, or if you have thoughts you want to share with me, I would love to hear it.

And for my friends and family, you know you have a guest bedroom waiting for you when you’re next visiting Buffalo.

Birthing a Novel and the Birth of Adventure Birthday

This year for my birthday I gave myself the gift of a writing retreat.

Four days away from all distractions, with no obligations other than to finally finish the first draft of my novel – the novel I started writing in 2017. Five years ago.

It is a luxury and when the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. I packed up my bags and met my friend Jes (also writing a book) and we spent the past weekend in a cabin in North Carolina, tucked away amongst the trees with a babbling brook alongside the porch.

Each day and evening we wrote, with a few breaks for movement, rest, food, and one ambitious day, a hike in the mountains.

Yes, it was idyllic. But even if we were in less idyllic surroundings, the biggest gift of this writing retreat was to give myself time and space to write. Something I find difficult at home when I’m amid responsibilities that feel more pressing and important. I also find it hard after a workday to motivate myself to pick up my computer when the cozy couch and my spouse are nearby looking much more appealing.

I joked with my family that I felt like Colin Firth’s character in “Love Actually”, typing away in his cottage in France, minus the housekeeper-love interest of course. (And with my laptop instead of a typewriter, I had no need to make copies.) I wanted this experience for myself – to see if getting away from it all would help me to finish what I started so long ago.

As I shared above, my goal for the weekend was to finish the first draft of a middle grade novel that I have been writing off and on for five years. Even if I’m the only person who ever reads this novel, it means a lot to me, but for many reasons I’d been unable to finish it.

To be fair, I’ve written other things in that time. A little over a year ago, I launched my blog Birth of Adventure, and ran a contest for friends and family to subscribe leading up to my birthday.

The blog came about when I had been feeling restless and anxious about my impending empty nest– reflecting on closing a chapter in my life and the uncertainty of what my next chapter would be like. In the empty space that opened, I wanted to fill it with something I’d be excited for – and I saw traveling and writing as what I wanted to let back into my life.

So, looking back a year later, how did I do? Between November 2021 to March 2022, I published 11 blog posts. Not too bad. I took the dream trip to Scotland I’d been planning for a year. And then I stopped blogging. As I shared in my October post, I got tired. Instead of writing publicly, I turned inward for some quiet.

In that space, the novel beckoned to me again. I picked it up and dusted it off. And made slow progress. Snail level progress. I joined writing communities with Highlights Foundation. I took writing classes. I worked on story development. I wrote a full outline. And then I enrolled in a class called “Just Do It”, which told me to just do it.

So my birthday gift to myself was the time and space to finally finish writing the first draft. I was so close I could feel it. I’d written 150 pages, and felt I was about 15,000 words away, but reaching the finish line was eluding me.

You may wonder why I care so deeply about the story? Part of it is a love letter to my mom who I lost 16 years ago. The novel is about a 13-year-old girl named Charlotte who deals with the grief of losing her mother by casting herself into a self-imposed exile – broken reluctantly by a new neighbor – with friendships and hijinks included. It is set in my neighborhood on the West Side of Buffalo, with a cast of friends inspired by some of our close family friendships. It includes Girl Scouts of course – Charlotte’s troop of friends – and there is plenty of adventure and food, some of my favorite things. I hope that a grieving child might find comfort, recognition and hope in this story, and that others will feel empathy and be reminded about the importance of friendship.

With a story that I care so deeply about, why did I keep stopping? One, I was getting stuck in the middle – I knew the beginning, I knew the end, but I didn’t know how to connect those together. The outline solved that. There was a bigger issue. I felt that if I was a writer, then beautiful, flowing, articulate words should pour out of my fingers like honey. And crappy, hack-ish, meandering words were clunking out of my keyboard. What if I finally finished this novel and learned I’m a terrible writer? What if I’m not like Diana Gabaldon whose first “practice” novel Outlander became a major bestseller and a series?

In the “Just Do It” class, our teacher told us that all that mattered was the words getting on the page. Finishing the draft. The beautiful, articulate words could wait for the second or third or fourth draft. Something in her message sunk in, and I gave myself permission to write a crappy first draft.

That was my birthday gift to myself – the gift of time, and space. The gift to get it done. The gift to finish something that was my dream, even though on most days I acted like it was a task or expectation imposed on me. Writing this novel has been hard. I don’t always like to do things I find hard.

In our cozy cabin this weekend, I sat in front of the computer. I plodded through, unflinching at the parts that were hack-ish, amateurish, hokey, cheesy, you name it. I embraced it all. I threw the clay down, knowing that ahead of me would the fun part of revising and polishing until it becomes something that I’d be willing to share even if not comfortable to share.

And I’m proud to say …….

I finished it!!!!

When the weekend started I was at 150 pages, and I finished the weekend with 220 pages. Some of the writing I loved, some made me laugh, some made me cry. A lot made me cringe and was very, very crappy. But it is done!! Instead of staring down the road at a never ending abyss, I now have a foundation of clay to mold.

After I take a nice long break over the holidays.

Sometimes we follow our dreams, and the dream turns out to be hard. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope you continue to take on the things you’ve been dreaming to do as well.

Best, Alison

Pick up the Glove-Reflections, Completions and Intentions for the New Year

Pick up the Glove – Reflections, Completions and Intentions for the New Year

Twenty years ago on December 30, I was sweating and slightly panicky about my first date with my now husband David. He asked me out for New Year’s Eve, and as I lived in Toronto and he lived just outside of Buffalo, NY, it was a bit complicated. He offered to cook me dinner at his place, and because I didn’t drive he also offered to pick me up at my parent’s house in rural Ontario where I was staying for the holidays. Lest this sound like I was a teenager, I had just celebrated my 27th birthday.

I was surprisingly nervous. Nervous to find out if the feelings we had while talking remotely would still be there when we were together, nervous about navigating a weekend long date, and mostly nervous about my loud chaotic family being part of it.

It was too late to wish I’d gone to my place in Toronto first – he was already on his way to meet me. My brothers and sisters teased me about all the things they could say and do to embarrass me. I grabbed a glass of wine and practiced breathing.

The snow was coming down hard and David was stuck in a snowstorm – he did finally make it safely but it was a tough drive. When he arrived he gave me a book – “West with the Night”, a memoir by Beryl Markham, a woman adventurer and aviator who was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic from Britain to North America. David said he thought I would like it when he heard I was flying in a small craft airplane with some other students in our course. I loved it.

After a few of my siblings did their best shenanigans, we headed out. A pleasant conversation was cut short when David’s car broke down, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a snowstorm. My sister Abbie kindly drove out to pick us up, and after a few more Wilcox family shenanigans, David spent the night in my brother’s bedroom at my parent’s house. We laughed about it, but this date was definitely not going as planned.

The next day, New Year’s Eve, we spent several freezing hours in a Canadian Tire parking lot while David fixed his car. I kept him company and kept him supplied with hot drinks and snacks.

I can’t remember why I wasn’t wearing my gloves in that weather, but for some reason I was holding them – either squished between my arm and side, or in my hands. What I do remember is that I kept dropping them. Each time I dropped a glove I became more self-conscious.

Recently a friend had told me he thought I was “sloppy”, ie., the type of person whose shoelaces would always come untied, and he encouraged me to become more polished. It didn’t help that I was also considered “Awkward Ally” a lot. After about the third time I dropped a glove I made a self-deprecating comment, and tried to laugh it off.

David turned to me and said “Just pick up the glove. That’s all there is.”

I laughed. It seemed simple. The glove was on the ground and no matter how I felt about it, all there was to do was to pick it up. Beating myself up about dropping it wouldn’t change anything.

I picked it up. And when I stopped worrying about what David thought, and stopped being caught up in an existential crisis about my perceived sloppiness, something else happened.

I stopped dropping the gloves. It seemed easier to pay attention to them when my mind wasn’t focused on worrying so much.

That was one of the first traditions that lived on after this date – for several years, whenever one of us would get dramatic or make a lot of meaning about something, we would remind each other to just “Pick up the glove”.

David managed to get his car running, and we made it to his place in Hamburg, NY in time for our New Year’s Eve date. He made me a delicious pasta dinner, and was excited to serve me a dessert of fresh espresso and delectable chocolate truffles his brother had gotten in New York City. David handed me the chocolate, and told me to put it in my mouth and then take a sip of the espresso. The hot coffee melted the chocolate and the taste combination was incredible.

To cap off the evening, we decided to reflect on our past year, and set an intention for the next year. We each wrote a list of what we wanted to highlight from the past year – things we were proud of, things we wanted to complete and leave behind, lessons we had learned. Then we wrote a list of what we wanted to create for the next year – what we wanted to do, who we wanted to become. We shared these lists with each other.

That first date led to another date, and then another, and I don’t take for granted after our own histories, that we just celebrated our 20th anniversary of our first New Year’s date together.

Each New Year’s Eve since then, give or take a few days, David and I set aside an evening to enjoy a lovely dinner, and share our reflections and completions from the past year, and our intentions and creations for the next year. Sometimes we are joined by our kids, sometimes joined by friends, and most times just the two of us.

For the sake of keeping this blog post to a reasonable length, I won’t share everything from my list, and instead share a few personal reflections and completions from 2021:

2021 Reflections and Completions:

Family:

We said goodbye to my wonderful grandpa Lloyd Wilcox who passed away in May. Because of the pandemic and border closure, I joined his funeral and celebration of his life on zoom. I am leaving behind the sadness at not being able to be together in person during that time, and bringing with me the joy I felt when I was reunited with many of my family members in July when the border finally reopened. I think of my grandpa often as someone who lived life fully and loved generously.

We celebrated Ben turning 18, graduating from high school and looking forward to his next adventure.

We welcomed two new babies to the family and two new sets of parents were formed. Sweet baby Bernie was born in February, my youngest brother and sister-in-law’s first child and my niece. And sweet baby Gemma – my stepdaughter Sarah and son-in-law Liam’s first baby was born in October, making David and I proud new grandparents. We haven’t hugged and cuddled these babies enough due to the pandemic, but I’m so glad for each moment that we got and look forward to more to come.

Rediscovering Writing and Adventure:

In March I declared an intention to write, to start a blog and to plan an adventure to Scotland in 2022. I attribute the supportive words from friends and family at this time as the boon that gave me the guts to make it happen.

In May I became a co-author for “The Rising Sisterhood Book Two“, spent the summer writing and revising my chapter, and was proud to be a published author when the book came out in October. I’ll share more about the wonderful experience that being part of this collective was, but in short, it was a supportive community of women who helped me get through the anxiety of telling my story publicly, in writing and on video, and all that was entailed. Because of this experience and sisterhood, I gained the confidence to push through those feelings and realize I could do it.

In October I procrastinated launching the blog by dusting off the middle grade novel I started a few years ago and taking a Highlights Foundation writing class in my spare time to breathe life back into it. I’m nearly 10,000 words in and still going.

In November with the tech and design expertise of my talented niece Molly, I launched the Birth of Adventure blog, and I was beyond gratified by the comments and feedback from family and friends. Thank you for reading – I appreciate you and it means a lot.

For 2022, I’ll share a few simple intentions:

I will keep writing. I’ll share stories in the Birth of Adventure blog, and finish the first draft of my novel which has characters and a story I love and dreamed of telling

I will plan and take a great adventure in Scotland with David this spring

I will keep exercising and build my strength so that I can actively hike and climb hills in Scotland

I will hug and cuddle the babies whenever I can

I will be open to being a yes to adventure

I will lead with empathy and courage and help grow leaders around me

And last but not least, when I inevitably stumble, I will pick up the glove

If you haven’t spent some time reflecting on the past year and setting an intention for the next year, I invite you to consider doing this in a way that best works for you. If you have done this, are you excited about what you created for yourself? If not, consider revisiting if it’s something that pulls at you, that you are yearning for, or if it’s something that you think you “should do”.

For 2021, what are you proud of? What lessons did you learn? What are you completing and leaving behind?

For 2022, what are you yearning to do or become? What is your next adventure? What scares you in a good way?

I look forward to hearing what you are excited about (and scared in a good way about) so that I can cheer you on and support you. Please share in the comments or in the facebook group.

Cheers to new adventures in 2022, and remember, when you stumble, all there is to do is pick up the glove.

The Birth of the Birth of Adventure blog

This is the story of how I dreamed the Birth of Adventure blog into reality, its own birth story if you will.

In March 2021, a year after the pandemic first reached our WNY community, my beautiful son Ben turned 18.

Like many parents who celebrate their child’s transition to adulthood, I was in a flurry of emotions. Pride, love, nostalgia. Worrying if I had done enough, taught him enough to send him out into the world. Sweet longing for the days when he was tiny and I was his whole world.

When he was little it felt like time was endless, but now, with highschool graduation looming, I was painfully present to the ticking clock – his time at home with us was slipping away.

For his birthday I wrote him a letter. In the letter, I wrote about his birth story, and about the profound impact he has had on my life. By writing to him, I tried to give him a special gift – a glimpse into the magnitude of love that I feel for him, something that so many children (and adults) can’t fathom – the gift of experiencing how deeply he is loved.

I shared in the letter that Ben tethered me – to him, and to the family we made with his dad and sisters – in a way I had never been tethered before.

In utero we nicknamed Ben “Baby Adventure” (full story in the Baby Adventure blog post), and I spent my pregnancy living in Toronto while Ben’s dad (now my husband David) lived in Hamburg, NY with his two daughters. The adventure continued as Ben and I immigrated to America – right from the hospital, when Ben was one day old.

I went from being an independent world traveler living in the big city of Toronto to a mom, stepmom and wife in America practically overnight. The bigger transition for me, more than moving to a new country, more than giving birth, was surrendering to commitment. As someone who was frequently changing apartments, jobs, relationships, cities and even countries, I was restless. It was a challenge and a joy to learn to stay in one place, raise a family; grow while settling down. As my heart grew bigger than it ever had, I became fiercely devoted to my new family.

And now on Ben’s birthday, I sat wondering, after 18 years of settling down and committing to motherhood, what will become of my life when Ben graduates from high school and moves off on his own adventures?

What surprised me the most was how sad I felt. It was strange because on the surface it is a happy thing. Kids growing up is a natural and vital part of life. And knowing too many people who have lost their children, it’s something I don’t take for granted. Yet this feeling of mourning, of losing, nagged at me.

Ben was going to leave us. But in truth, the goodbyes and endings had been happening for years as our baby and teenagers kept growing.

I’d said goodbye to:

little Ben sneaking into our room in the middle of the night and climbing into our bed.
picking Ben up after his nap, and him falling back asleep, warm and sweaty and snuggly against my chest.
Cozy TV nights with the girls that made way for nights out with their friends.
When Sarah and Hannah graduated from high school, and moved to Syracuse and then Austin, Texas. We still had phone calls and trips throughout the year, but we’d said goodbye to the dream of having them close, of having regular visits or weekly Sunday night dinners.

And soon Ben would graduate from high school and set off on his gap year overseas. Goodbye to Friday pizza and movie nights. Goodbye to his strong bear hugs.

David came with 2 children when I met him, and I couldn’t imagine what our lives would look like without the hugs, chaos, noise, and laughter that kids bring.

I was dreading an empty void where the kids had so vibrantly filled space in my day to day.

As I wrote a mother’s love letter to her child, and shared stories of Ben’s birth and childhood, the moments I’d mourned as lost came alive again. I’d been counting the waning hours on the ticking clock, my head turned backwards, fearing what was coming.

What was I afraid of? Of Ben courageously living his adult life? Or of really looking at my own?

In these years of surrendering to mothering, and to family, although I had a fulfilling career, and volunteered, there were parts of me I’d set aside to make room, lying dormant. My love of travel, of picking up and moving when the whim took me, and setting off for grand adventures. My love of writing, of telling and sharing stories.

A main theme of this blog, a lesson learned from losing my parents and brothers and others too young, is that life is short. Too short to leave passions and dreams dormant. Too short to be looking back with regrets.

I’d been dreading the empty space ahead but what if I looked at it as a precious gift of time waiting for me? After a year of living in isolation, with cancelled plans and disappointments, I needed something to look forward to.

And so I started planning a dream trip, something that I wanted.

I set a date in the not too distant future – spring 2022 – for my dream trip to Scotland. David and I had each visited separately and wanted to go back together. And I’d recently been tracking my family’s ancestry to the small island of Coll – I wanted to see this tiny island with more sheep than people where my ancestors had lived for hundreds of years.

As enthusiasm and energy filled me with something so wonderful to look forward to: the food, the sea, the mountains! (and for Outlander friends, Jamie!), I knew I was ready to start writing again. I wanted to share stories of travel, adventure, family, life and even death. Stories to help and inspire living fully, intentionally and courageously.

I put the Birth of Adventure blog into existence by sharing my goal with friends, and asking my niece Molly to help me with the design and setting up the site.

I would love for these stories to be read, and to be of help to others. But even if not, it will make a difference for me as a creative outlet and way to connect with family and friends worldwide.

And as I mentioned about life being short, I also hope for it to be a historical record of my life on this planet that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren might enjoy.

For Ben, I’m learning that loving and holding tight aren’t the same thing. I’ll miss seeing him every day but I’m proud of who he is and I think the most important thing I can do for him as his mom right now is to help him feel confident and free to pursue his own path. And it helps for him to see me pursuing mine too.

Now off to the next adventure!