That Special Travel Moment I Almost Forgot About

I wrote this story when our family vacation started a couple of weeks ago while I was onboard our flight.  The Wi-fi stopped working (go figure) and I never finished publishing it. Just in case you’re caught up on our travels and wonder why it says “this morning….” 😉

I boarded a flight this morning with my family.  We had been planning this trip for six months, but the destination was a place where my kids have wanted to visit for many years.  It’s also a place that had so many magical moments for me the first time I visited, but we’ll get back to that.  This is not a story of rags to riches, nor one of perseverance over adversity.  It’s a story of a moment where the world slows down for a minute so I could take a breath and see what was in front of me.  I’m very fortunate to have these moments, and I need to do a better job not letting them slip by unnoticed.

Take the trip.

I’m not the first to use those words, but it’s the core of what I felt this morning when we boarded this flight.  It’s been a while since our family took a trip somewhere truly aspirational.  Last summer we were fortunate enough to spend a couple of weeks in Hawaii for the first time.  While it wasn’t a perfect trip, it was a great experience for our family of four.  With the exception of an incredible final experience on Starcruiser, the past year of flights has been mostly a blur for me.  I’ve taken plenty of flights, a few of them to fun places.

There was that crazy sprint to five countries in one day.  A trip to Disney World for my son’s birthday.  A trek to California to support a dear friend while she walked for a cure to MS, a disease that sometimes robs her of the light that shines so bright inside her.  There was a last-minute flight for a funeral, to say goodbye to someone who I shared an incredible bond with.  And, there were work trips.  So many work trips.

I’m not complaining.  I promise you that.  I just want to capture the context behind that simple moment today.  I’m exhausted.  The pace of the past year has been brutal.  Criss-crossing the country for work obligations while racing home to watch my daughter compete in her senior year of track and cross country, to capture every one of those moments I could.  Every moment, whether watching her run or cheering on my son’s achievements, they’re all worth being there for.

Along the way, all that travel takes a toll.  It’s never a sharp jab or an uppercut to the jaw.  The lines just get a bit blurry.  The picture isn’t quite as colorful.  My wife and I have been drinking from a fire hose most of the past year.  Along with a child getting ready for college, our parents have been dealt with serious ailments.  “Sandwich parenting” became a reality that’s hard to quantify.

Over the past week, I’ve been sprinting in a mad dash to wrap up as many details so I could be on this journey in Tokyo with my family.  I was on a phone call three minutes prior to boarding our flight, and had a dozen reminders that I needed to wrap up once we boarded.  The 45 minutes before departure would be ample time to knock those off my list.

But, sometimes life just has other ideas.  Our kids boarded that flight and were beyond excited.  They’ve flown in business class plenty of times before, and visited far away countries.  This wasn’t about something “new”, per se.  It was just “something”.  And, in that brief moment where I’d normally pivot to work, the world slowed down for me.

The kids were doing funny things that kids do, filming a video of the amenity kit and raving about pajamas they received from the nicest flight attendant I’ve met in quite some time.  My wife had this incredible smile on her face.  The sun burst through the windows, adding a sparkle to everything.  Maybe it was the sun, or maybe it was the laughter of my kids.  Whatever it was, it felt like someone turning the TV from a black-and-white TV show to a full color, high-definition adventure.

This adventure is what I needed.  I needed to remember the big world out there that isn’t the next delayed flight crammed into coach.  Or trying to function after that long delay cuts into your sleep that night.  We can all survive on five hours of sleep, but it has consequences.  For me, the consequence lately has been not slowing down and appreciating these moments.

Japan is an incredible place, an incredible culture.  It’s been quite some time since I visited.  Seeing the world through the eyes of my children is one of the most rewarding parts of my life.  All of those flight delays and short nights in crappy hotels lead to this moment.

I get to spend this trip watching them see things that are mostly familiar to me, along with a few new adventures for all of us together.  Travel is in my blood.  I’m not a fan of words like “always” and “never”, but it’s always been there, that love of travel and adventure.

Today was a reminder that the passion to explore is still there, still strong.  Travel brings us together, to laugh and to cry, to experience new things.  My kids are getting older.  There’s plenty of gray hair on my head.  In fact, I think they far outnumber the non-gray versions.

But, for just a moment today, I was a kid again, seeing the world through the eyes of my children.  I can’t wait for the next moment.