The unexpected gift of traveling without my kids.

I recently went away on an epic hiking trip through the Himalayas in Nepal. On an 11-day hike, along with 2 other girlfriends, we made it up to Annapurna Base Camp and back down. It was an epic journey and I will leave the shares about that another time (or reach out and ask, because I love talking about it right now!!), but what I would love to share about is what that was like for me as a mother.

I have done a lot of challenging things to my body during my lifetime, and I can’t say I have ever really shied away from risk or challenge. I have broken nearly every bone in my upper body (back, both arms, wrist, and collar bone), and love a good thrill. So it took me by complete surprise that as the time came closer to depart on this trip, I could feel my body getting more and more nervous about leaving my kids, about being apart from them. I would be away 2.5 weeks, and this was not the first time I have been gone this long from them. While I love being with my kids, I also equally love and value my adult only time. So why this time was I feeling so nervous about it?

I realized because I was directly putting myself in the way of risk.

Yes I had been gone from them for the same amount of time, but going to a conference in Arizona, followed by visiting friends in Canada and California, doesn’t carry the same weight of risk as placing myself on a mountain that has known terrain of major avalanches and landslides.

I thought through all the things that could happen to me, questioned if something happened to me was that being selfish, got tears thinking that I would have chosen to do something for me that could negatively impact my kids…and the mental spins could go on.