Same Book, New Chapter

16 years ago today, I wrote the very first post on Pizza in Motion.  I always said I’d come up with a better name for this blog.  That one was just a placeholder.  16 years later, the name is still around and so am I.  Around that same time I had started this blog, there was another beginning of sorts.  Our first child, our daughter Cat, was born a couple years earlier.  As our life settled into a bit of a rhythm, I found the time to start writing.

I took some time finding my voice, sort of like that infant learning to crawl, then walk.  Ultimately, she started running, as did I.  Over the years, my writing style has evolved.  I’ve always loved talking about travel and helping others, dating back to the late 90s on message boards like FlyerTalk and Milepoint.  During that part of my journey, I met a man named Randy Petersen.  He decided to host this blog a little over a decade ago, which helped increase my traffic and visibility.

Along the way, our family grew.  The little boy in the Pizza in Motion logo is now taller than everyone else in our family (I really need to update that logo).  If you’ve been following along for some time, you also know I started a podcast, then ultimately turned it into a weekly video show.  I also started a Slack community where folks get to connect with travel experts.

I don’t need to tell you about COVID.  We all lived through it together.  However, that time period represented a change in my life.  I didn’t see it at the time, and the majority of the change really wasn’t due to COVID (though COVID did make it much harder to write).  As life returned to some level or “normalcy”, our lives got busier.  Our kids started to increase the number of activities they were involved in.  Our daughter jumped headfirst into running.  Cross country and track meets took over our schedule.  I found that my free time became the time that I would use to plan our next vacation.  That used to be the time I would write.

As time went on, it became harder to maintain a proper cadence writing daily stories here.  And, then, one day, I woke up and we were taking our daughter to college. That day was earlier this week.  I couldn’t be prouder of the adult she’s becoming, and I’m excited for the next part of her journey.  As we prepared to leave her earlier this week and head for home, she surprised my wife and I by handing us letters that we weren’t allowed to read until we were in the car ride home.

As luck would have it, we hit some traffic here and there on the ride home, arriving quite late.  As the clock approached midnight, I opened the letter.  I’ve never been ashamed to say something made me cry, and tears flowed freely reading her letter.  I won’t share that letter here, but there were a couple of points in that letter that I find myself still thinking about days later.

The first point involved how my daughter says goodbye every time I leave on a trip.  She’s always been a bit anxious, and it was important to her to see me leave each time, no matter how early my flight was.  That meant frequently getting up while it was still dark out.  Our tradition is that she would push my car down the driveway and stand at the end of the driveway waving as I drove away.  My part was to wave back and tap the car horn every few seconds, including one last tap as my car disappeared over the hill and I disappeared out of view (hopefully, the neighbors weren’t light sleepers).  We’ve done this for every trip I’ve taken over the past decade or so.  Sitting there, reading her letter earlier this week, I realized we won’t be doing that anymore.

I’d be lying if I told you that didn’t make me sad.  However, that sadness quickly turned to hope as I continued reading.  My daughter loves to write, and in her letter she credits me for helping her ignite that fire.  Any parent will agree that the credit really does go to her for building that love of the written word, not to me.  But, in that moment, I couldn’t help acknowledge how far I’d gotten away from the time when I would write something for readers every day.

I miss that.  I’m not 100% sure how to build that back into my life.  It’s easy to say “just do it”, but life is more complicated than that.  I love writing.  I love that I’ve played some small part in helping my daughter develop that same love.  And, I’m going to continue supporting her ambitions.

Along the way, I want to write more.  I won’t make any silly promises about writing every day (promises I know I won’t be able to keep). Life is still very complicated for me, with a growing, not shrinking list of priorities.  Like any muscle, it may take some time for me to get back in shape.  If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been around here for a while. I’m thankful for that, and I want to do my part to make it worth your while to check in on me once in a while.

I’m thankful I’ve never had to write this blog for money.  It’s always been a labor love.  Given the significant changes Google and AI have caused to the writing industry, I’m likely not doing it for profit anytime soon.  So, it really has to be something I love.

The final two pennies?  I’m proud of my daughter.  She inspires me to pick up my pen and write some more.  Many years ago, I fashioned myself a novelist, only to crash and burn on the desk of a number of editors who helped me understand I wouldn’t be making my living cranking out novels.  I found my niche writing this blog, and I found that most folks enjoyed when I focused on travel.  Getting back to writing is a little bit about living up to my daughter’s belief that I helped inspire her to write, but it’s also, truly, about doing something I love.

I’m rooting for her to be an incredible journalist, or whatever she ultimately decides is her passion.  I hope she starts every day feeling her “job” is her passion.  Life is too short for anything else.  Along the way, I’ll be writing.  Sometimes about her and my family, sometimes about travel, sometimes about both.  I hope you’ll stick around.