I Can Show You The World

I have friends who like to travel. Some prefer domestic trips to Vegas or San Francisco. Others go big with journeys to Italy, Ireland and France.

For awhile, I wanted to be those people. I wanted to see the world. I talked about planning trips. Talked and talked. Sometimes I’d go online and research flights. But aside from our annual trip to Anna Maria Island and a few stray trips to Baltimore, it never happened.

We always had a good reason not to book. My mom was sick and I couldn’t leave her. T didn’t have a lot of vacation time left. We felt our money was better spent taking a chunk out of our student debt.

Then I got pregnant and I knew our “travel plans” were on hold… indefinitely. And in a strange way, it took some of the pressure off.

I think I started believing that I had to want to travel when the reality is: if we really, truly wanted to travel, we’d have made it happen. Maybe not often, but once. But the plain, simple fact is that I’m a homebody and so is my husband. I like being in Cincinnati, near my family and friends. I appreciate the familiarity of our favorite burger place and that 9 times out of 10, we bump into someone we know at the grocery.

After our daughter arrived though, something interesting happened. I started seeing the world. It’s the same sights I’ve seen my entire life, but seeing them through the eyes of a child makes everything new and special again.

Being brand new to the world, E looks at mundane, every day happenings as if there’s something magical about them. Those pots and pans? Best music ever. The pigs on Mommy’s socks? Hilarious. A turkey and cheese sandwich? Rage-inducing. Ok so that last one is confusing. But the point here is that seeing the world through the eyes of a child is seeing everything as if it’s new, and it’s incredible.

Perhaps someday T and I will go on adventures that take us around the world, but until then, I’m perfectly content here. The world I’m seeing looks beautiful through E’s big blue eyes.