Preview of first pages
“You should travel. Traveling overseas is like reading 10,000 books.” –random woman I sat next to once.
I have a confession to make. I was once a jealous woman. Seriously jealous. Sometimes I felt jealous of pretty young college girls who flirted with my husband—but I felt even more jealous of another kind of woman.
I was terribly jealous of the kind of person who could flippantly say, “Oh that reminds me of the time we were in [insert here any magical sounding destination that was far, far away from where my feet were currently planted].”
I would look positive and upbeat, smile, and say, “That sounds wonderful. Tell me about your experience.” Yet, it is true, inside I was whining, “I will never get to do that. I will never get to tell that story of hopping on and off of planes, eating in fabulous foreign places and shopping in quaint little shops.” As a young mom in my early thirties, I was earnestly trying to find the best deal on generic peanut butter. The idea of traveling to another continent seemed as far out of the realm of possibility as traveling to the moon.
One day something changed my mindset, though. It was something simple—a scrap of paper with a foreign postmark. A postcard, sent to me by an old college friend, of the interior of a breathtaking Scottish abbey. The words on the postcard weren't earth-shattering; it just said something about how much my friend thought my husband and I would love the small island of Iona, Scotland and how we should visit there sometime. Yet, there was something about that scrap of mail from so far, far away and my friend's innocent belief that it wouldn't be a big deal for my husband and me to someday hop on a plane and go halfway around the world that turned a page in the book of my life. I suddenly realized I didn't have to color in the lines anymore. In fact, there wasn't really a line to begin with: I could fill the page with as many bright and iridescent colors as I wanted. It is interesting that sometimes other people can have larger dreams and aspirations for us than we do for ourselves.
I kept that postcard for twelve years, always thinking about the possibility of being in that abbey myself someday. Every time I looked at it I felt a sense of peace, as if it was indeed my destiny to not just dream of it, but to actually be inside that beautiful old building at some point. At the very least, just knowing that such a place existed filled me with joy. It was a “happy place” I would sometimes go to when the stress of life overwhelmed me. In twelve years time I had plenty of moments of stress, moments when it seemed the road map of my life had been folded the wrong way one too many times and big wrinkles of confusion and unexpected holes appeared, and yet somehow, inexplicably, my car stayed on the road. It even took a few new turns, turns that led me to destinations I never would have expected.
I have a confession to make. I was once a jealous woman. Seriously jealous. Sometimes I felt jealous of pretty young college girls who flirted with my husband—but I felt even more jealous of another kind of woman.
I was terribly jealous of the kind of person who could flippantly say, “Oh that reminds me of the time we were in [insert here any magical sounding destination that was far, far away from where my feet were currently planted].”
I would look positive and upbeat, smile, and say, “That sounds wonderful. Tell me about your experience.” Yet, it is true, inside I was whining, “I will never get to do that. I will never get to tell that story of hopping on and off of planes, eating in fabulous foreign places and shopping in quaint little shops.” As a young mom in my early thirties, I was earnestly trying to find the best deal on generic peanut butter. The idea of traveling to another continent seemed as far out of the realm of possibility as traveling to the moon.
One day something changed my mindset, though. It was something simple—a scrap of paper with a foreign postmark. A postcard, sent to me by an old college friend, of the interior of a breathtaking Scottish abbey. The words on the postcard weren't earth-shattering; it just said something about how much my friend thought my husband and I would love the small island of Iona, Scotland and how we should visit there sometime. Yet, there was something about that scrap of mail from so far, far away and my friend's innocent belief that it wouldn't be a big deal for my husband and me to someday hop on a plane and go halfway around the world that turned a page in the book of my life. I suddenly realized I didn't have to color in the lines anymore. In fact, there wasn't really a line to begin with: I could fill the page with as many bright and iridescent colors as I wanted. It is interesting that sometimes other people can have larger dreams and aspirations for us than we do for ourselves.
I kept that postcard for twelve years, always thinking about the possibility of being in that abbey myself someday. Every time I looked at it I felt a sense of peace, as if it was indeed my destiny to not just dream of it, but to actually be inside that beautiful old building at some point. At the very least, just knowing that such a place existed filled me with joy. It was a “happy place” I would sometimes go to when the stress of life overwhelmed me. In twelve years time I had plenty of moments of stress, moments when it seemed the road map of my life had been folded the wrong way one too many times and big wrinkles of confusion and unexpected holes appeared, and yet somehow, inexplicably, my car stayed on the road. It even took a few new turns, turns that led me to destinations I never would have expected.
