Trips to be Remembered

I had been dreaming of setting my feet in Paris for more than 20 years and finally checked the list in my 30s.

All the road to make it happen, all the price paid for just a single dream.

The little girl is not even ten and has been to this lovely city twice. Without really knowing and understanding what it took to get here (and many other places she has been to).

There were times when I asked myself, “What would she become of being raised in a situation where such a hard-earned thing like going abroad feels like a regular thing to do?”

Something that both of her parents ever had growing up.
Maybe once every ten years or more, but not as often as we have been (by my personal standard, this is way too often).

Raising a human being is a tricky business indeed. Less is more, I agree, especially for the material things. Children care and need more of our presence or attention than the literal money we earn.

But, the short period spent with them is another thing that should be considered. When one thinks 18 years are long, this is wrong. We even have less than that to teach and transmit everything we want to. There’s an expiration date for parents to have significant influence in their children’s life.

Traveling is about maximizing such a ‘short’ period together, giving the most important education outside the classrooms and Zoom meetings, to transmit as many values as possible I wish her to have and hold. This period is like preparing her for the upcoming trips she would have later, hoping she has enough resources before she finally takes off with her life journey insya Allah.

I don’t have the slightest regret of every single trip we took her to. No matter how difficult they were. No matter how much we spent for them. Money (always) returns, the time won’t.

(This sounds like I am trying to convince myself).

She might not really ‘care’ about all those trips as much as I do. She might appreciate less fascinating things than all the places we’ve been to (like more time playing toca boca than walking around the city alleys under the sun with me). She might not remember all these things as much as I did, but hopefully, there would be something beneficial later from all those journeys we had, which I don’t know what. Yet.

Perhaps, a bit of good-to great-memories that made her smile when life gets tough is more than enough.

Such an intense trip deserves more rants. Guess this is the last one.