Facebook creeps me out. I can think about needing new socks, and ads start popping up in my feed about socks. I was packing for a trip to Israel, and Facebook reminded me that 6 years ago on that day I was in Israel, with you… a few weeks into our trip. It’s that picture of us sitting at an archeological site, chin in hands, hot and bored. It’s been six years since we traveled the world together. Wow. So much has changed… in the world…in our lives….in our hearts and heads. I would say all of those are for the better, except that Trump is president.

 

Often, I look back and can’t believe we actually did that trip. The me now thinks that the me back then was crazier, braver, tougher, and a bigger risk-taker than I am now. Maybe I give too much weight to the trip, but I link it to your choice of going to boarding school. That year gave you the confidence, independence, skills, and vision to get out of your small life in Aspen early. On the one hand, I love that for you, on the other, I have only myself to blame when I was experiencing “empty-nest syndrome” when you were only 14. But I love how we have both turned out, so far.

 

I don’t know all the ways we are each different because of the trip. Who is to say what quality or decision was made because of the trip? Of course it shaped both of our characters, choices, and perspectives in some way…hopefully mostly for the better.

 

I do know one thing…I am better at going with the flow. You may not notice or see it, and I’m not Heather, but the trip gave me lots of practice at letting go of control. It may not look like it, but I have also purged stuff, buy less, and strive for minimalism. I try to “go without” when packing for a trip, stopping before I buy something to check-in with myself that I really need it, and I let go of possessions that are lost, broken, or others need with much more ease.

 

My sweetest and my toughest memories are from Nepal and Cambodia. We both cried the most in Kathmandu, and got the sickest in Siem Reap. Neither was so bad, looking back. I loved the trekking with Dad and the Jacksons most of all, and loved the friends and social life in Siem Reap (even though the work was not so rewarding).

 

What did it do to/for us as mother and son? I’d like to think it brought us closer before we had to separate. I keep that email you sent me “read it all, it only gets better”. I think you wrote it when we first got to Cambodia and times were super tough for us. I’m glad my memory doesn’t hold onto the details, and is excellent at remembering things all a little rosier than it really might have been. I like that about my brain. It serves me well.

 

I’d like to explore more of the world together again, one day. We could be more independent, yet together, on a future trip.