Growing up, my sisters and I had no opportunities for family trips or exciting travel adventures. Mom didn’t know how to drive, and Dad was out on the road all week as a salesman. For us, an exciting, adventurous family trip was to the grocery store when Dad finally got home on Saturday (if we were really lucky, we went to the drugstore too).
It was our normal, and we didn’t resent it, though I had a very vivid imagination and often daydreamed myself onto a plane bound for Paris, Rome, or Timbuktu.
When I grew up, I promised myself I would become a big-time traveler. My passport would groan under the weight of all those stamps.
We didn’t have any money
As it often does, life had other plans for me. I married at age 20 to the love of my life, who also didn’t have a dime. Our early married traveling adventures all revolved around our work as actors, performing throughout the South in dinner theatre, then in the Northeast with children’s theatre.
When our five children made their appearances, any travel hopes were back-burnered for the foreseeable future. A choice between buying Pampers and taking a trip to Bermuda was no choice at all.
My dreams of exotic lands were once again deferred. I would have a pang or two when some of our more financially secure friends trotted off to Disney World with their kids (multiple times for some) or to ski in Colorado. We did our very best with budgeting, but certain things that our family valued came with steep price tags (violin and piano lessons come to mind), and there was always too much month at the end of the money.
Our kids saw the world on their own
As our offspring reached their teens, they had opportunities to see the world on their own, through school or music programs. Sheridan toured Europe with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. Rose spent a year as an exchange student in Thailand. Julie backpacked through 11 countries at age 18. I remember being so proud of them (they all worked to raise money for these opportunities) and allowing myself to envision even a little travel in my own future.
Finally, the kiddos were out of the nest, and I began freelancing as a writer. My church worker’s salary went into the general budget as always, but now I looked at my writing paychecks as extras, deposits on long-postponed treks to far-off lands. In the past 10 years, we’ve been to Europe five times and Asia once. I visited my great-grandma’s birthplace in Ireland and my daughter-in-law Ya-Jhu’s family in Taiwan.
I felt guilty about traveling
I expected to love these experiences, and I have. I didn’t expect the guilt that accompanied them. Why, oh why couldn’t we have gotten it together enough financially to take our brood on an Alaskan cruise? A spin through Barcelona? Or even a few days in the Magic Kingdom? Regret was draining the joy out of our travels for me. My now grown children never once expressed resentment about their upbringing, but they didn’t have to; I was regretting it enough for all of us.
But recently, I’ve been looking at life through a wider lens, and my attitude is changing. My kids have found ways to see the world, and maybe doing it on their own has made their journeys even sweeter. They seem genuinely happy for my husband and me to be hitting the road later in life. I can’t undo the past, go to med school or become an investment banker. Our money memories will always be memories of struggles.
I believe my children all inherited my curiosity about the world, and that they are proud to turn their own dreams into reality. My mom often talked about going to Dublin and Honolulu, but she never got to either place. At almost 70, I understand on a deep level that life is very short, tomorrow is promised to no one. So maybe it’s OK to seize the moments we have left, to see some of this wide, wonderful world for ourselves before it’s too late.
Our 50th wedding anniversary is coming up, and I’m researching hotels in Portugal and camel rides in the Sahara, with excitement and gratitude. And no more guilt.