Reclaiming My Childhood

My view whilst swinging

People who know me face-to-face may be surprised to know what I have been up to recently. For all my radicalness, I am quite conservative in person -- not because I value it, but because I am still scared to burst out of my shell in front of people. I have been called weird more than once, and I have internalized that there is something wrong with that. Well, that internalization is being evicted :)) Weird, here I come :)))

I used to LOVE being active when I was a child. I did all sorts of physical activities. As I became an adult, I let those things go. Recently, I have become very NOT active. So, I am reclaiming that part of my childhood. I have been up to all manner of my childhood favorites: the glee of swinging every chance I get, racing down slides after my little ones, learning how to ride a Razor scooter, buying myself a pair of rollerblades (!!!!) (from Goodwill, my size, sparkly dark purple -- SO meant for me), running around a grassy park kicking a ball with my kids, trapsing up and down the beach as many times as we just do rather than trying to limit the trips, exploring places where I could fall (like the jetty), going for hikes, racing down to the beach at night to play tirelessly in the glowing water...

I think that wanting to travel with the van as homebase is a sort of revisiting travelling with my mom and brother in our minivan when I was a teenager and life was so simple in the van, and life was more about experiences and less about stuff, when I delighted living from a suitcase, when I stretched and grew in ways I never would have imagined, when I saw landscapes that strummed the heartstrings of my spirit and my soul, when I met people from so many different walks of life and learned to embrace the beauty of diversity.

This time around, I get to appreciate it in ways I couldn't imagine last time.

Last time, I was like a big open cup, just pouring these experiences in without really processing them and digging deeper into the ways that they were impacting me. I love that (the sifting) about being an adult, as much as I love the open rawness of being a kid.

Maybe this is a common part of life? It kind of reminds me of how being a parent is almost like closing a loop about having been parented. It feels like it completes a circle, as I can only imagine watching my child become a parent seals that loop! But I am not a crone, yet, so I am still in mother mode :))

Maybe this adventure is another chapter of finding peace with my past? Btw, even if this is true, the adventure alone is about way more than just that! But while we are on the topic of healing pasts, I can see this filling some empty spots.

Shortly after we settled back down and started growing roots (after moving often and travelling), I never wanted to move/travel like that again. I felt like I had missed out on so much by not staying in one place for a long time. I grew roots -- boy, did I grow roots. I stayed in the same town for 17 years. I was careful to provide the stability I thought was best, for Kassidy -- she went to the same daycare as far back as she remembered, the same school, we lived in the same apartment complex for 6 years.... And then when she was in 3rd grade, a shift happened. She wanted to shake things up a bit, wanted some change, wanted new friends and different experiences. We had to move, and she was THRILLED about it! Then, change just kept happening, and it felt so wonderful.

Finding unschooling was a sort of healing, because it helped explain the form of learning through living we had done while travelling (not formal homeschooling). It probably paved the way to me finding peace with all the unconventionalness and movement of my childhood. I also probably got my fill of growing roots and was ready for something new. Even though I ultimately trust that my kids will figure out their own journey and find peace with whatever decisions I make that may "mess them up" as they get older, I feel more confident that I can avoid those giant pitfalls altogether. Afterall, I can draw off of personal experience, and our parenting/family interaction style is healing along the way, as well.

Closing loops. Reliving my childhood. Reprocessing my childhood.

Good stuff.