My brain woke me at 7am yesterday morning, my first morning back in Indy. It was a bit disorienting since I’ve been existing at a 3 hour time difference from Indy for a while now. I was planning to sleep in and relax but my body and brain were too busy processing the past 5 weeks and the profound impact this trip has had on my mental health, as well as on me as a mother. I’m not going to lie - this last hurrah of travels as a nomadic family was harder to pull off than almost anything else we’ve done in the past six years. It took a lot. It was a lot. But I knew it had to happen. There was no other way we could possibly close out this chapter of our little family life.
So. I made it happen.

I would like to imagine that some of the memories that we have built over the past 5 weeks (hell, the past SIX YEARS) will be core memories that Noah will carry with him for the rest of his life. There were a lot of things different about this trip besides it being the bookend to our nomadic lives that we’ve built together…and I’ll talk about that as I process things in the coming weeks. Truly, though, I don’t have a single regret over making the decisions that I made to take us on the wild journey that has been this beautiful life.
Not a single fucking regret.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be digging deeper into all of my feelings, the travels, what has worked for us and why, and what the future holds. My Indy friends are all taking bets as to how long it takes for me to get that wanderlust itch again and, truth be told, it won’t be long. But. This next chapter isn’t about me. It’s a short chapter in the whole scheme of things but damn it, if it isn’t an important one. I’ll still travel. But that will look vastly different and will be much more compartmentalized. Noah is already excitedly planning some small backpacking trips with me, including a winter backpacking trip in Wisconsin when we go up for a friend/client and her family. I’m talking to PNW clients about coming back to work with them all again next summer. So it’s not like I’m NOT going to travel. Or adventure. But it will just start to look more like how most other people do it.
At least for now.