Dear Mom,

The last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want my life to look like. Not my ‘in 5 years’ goal. Not my ‘at my deathbed’ goal. Rather, my ‘right now, today, tomorrow, in the moment’ goal. I’ve listened to podcasts. Read articles. Talked with other parents. Attempting to get a general picture of what my day-to-day could look like. What makes me truly happy. I’ve written to you about needing more money in order to assist in my goals. I’ve written to you about my legacy and what I want to accomplish before I die. I’ve written to you about finding my identity. I’ve even written to you about what kind of parent I want to be and how important human connection is to my overall fulfillment.

Even with all that, I’ve still been struggling with the last piece. The right now. The how to. Often, when I’ve wondered about how to tackle something big or answer a big question, I make a list. As you taught me. 

Earlier this week, I got inspired by a podcast that mentioned the idea of making a ‘to learn’ list instead of a ‘to do’ list. It occurred to me that maybe a potential update to my list making strategy is what I need to refresh my life’s vision. Perhaps what I need most right now is to bring awareness to the activities I want to fill my life with. Not the mundane. Not the necessary. Not the how to cook more exciting meals or how to clean more efficiently. Not even how to squeeze in more movement (that I’ve got covered). Instead, I want to find new experiences. New hobbies. New attempts at trying. Succeeding and also failing. Simply putting effort into something I haven’t done before. Or working toward mastering something I’ve always struggled with, such as riding my road bike and diving headfirst into the pool.

The idea of this type of list excites me. I think it’s because it reminds me of how much I love to learn. I won’t lie and say my school years were the best years of my life. Those years were some of my darkest. But I can say with absolute honesty that it was never the education that I disliked. I LOVED school. I loved gaining knowledge. And I think I’ve been missing that feeling. It’s why I love continuing education workshops. It’s why I love writer’s conferences. It’s likely why I love podcasts and newsletters and ‘how to’ articles. I love to learn, and I miss that feeling. 

So, I decided to sit down and write my list.

What I do know, is that I can make my list. I can add to my list. I can tell the world about all the wonderful things on my list. If I don’t implement it. If I don’t actively work on starting to check things off, then it feels a bit useless. It feels like a show. And I’m sure I can find many examples, through my writing to you and also my countless half-finished journals, of lists I’m written that have been entirely forgotten. But there is a difference this time. This list is extra special.

This time I’m not alone.

Scotland and I sat down together, and each made a list which we’ve been adding to almost daily since. Mine contains things such as become fluent in Spanish and learn to feel comfortable on that road bike. Hers mentions learn to skip a monkey bar and learn to make her own puzzle. We both mention learning how to successfully garden. She also wrote down that she’d like to learn how to make coffee for her parents, which I’m totally excited about. Each day we have been talking about these things together. All the things we’d love to learn in life. And it’s occurred to me that what I really want, more than anything, is to learn these things, both my list and hers, together. I want to experience all the joy that life has to offer alongside my kids. Connecting to them more as we learn.

It’s possible that my desire to connect to them has a lot to do with the fact that they are on summer break and mostly home with me all day. I’m being reminded constantly of how short this timeframe truly is. These years when they are here. Home and legitimately excited to be with me. I know this won’t last forever and what I want ultimately is to maximize our time together. I want to fill my days with my family. 

It’s funny to me because I never thought I’d get to this point. I never imagined reaching a moment in life when all I want to do is spend my days with my kids. It does help that they’re great company, but still, I always thought I’d have my kids, they’d do their thing, I’d do mine.

When I was a kid, besides family vacations, I don’t remember witnessing many parents hanging out with their children, learning something together. It was always about taking kids to their activities all school year and then sending them to sleepaway camp during the summer. And I imagine that while we were away at camp for eight weeks, you were living it up at home finding yourself and learning new things and thriving without us. Happy that we were gone. Out of your way. And we were probably equally happy to be away from home to do our own thing and experience life without you.

And maybe this is the ultimate goal in life. Maybe we’re all aspiring to afford to send our kids away for the summers, to make magic memories and lifelong friends. While leaving parents home to work on finding themselves again.

But that’s not the life I have. I don’t have the bank account to send them away. I barely have the option to send them to one week of day camp at the local rec center. So maybe, it’s best for me to lean into what I do have. Currently, I do have time. It’s limited. I do have to wake up at 5am in order to maximize my time alone, but I have a ton of time right now to spend with my kids and I am extremely lucky that I also have the desire to. Because as much as I’d love to spend eight weeks working on myself, I do kind of enjoy hanging out with my two knuckleheads. 

Looking back, before I had kids, actually weeks before I had Scotland, I was worried. Worried that I would soon lose myself in the process of becoming a mom. And it seems this is a common worry for new parents. It’s scary, dedicating your time and energy to tiny humans who literally can’t do anything on their own. It’s easy to get sucked into this idea that as a parent we need to make space for ourselves to grow as individuals and avoid getting completely lost in our new role. When I first became a mom, I thought I needed to carve out time for me, away from my kids. Completely alone. But I don’t want that. I really don’t. Sure, I enjoy my solo runs. My time alone writing. I like cooking by myself while listening to a podcast. I feel like I’ve got the whole ‘me time’ covered’ in a lot of ways. What I truly want is to learn entirely new things, such as how to successfully make sourdough bread, with my kids. I don’t want to go take a class or watch a video while they’re at school. I want to knead the bread with them. To get messy with them. To screw up and try again with them. And I want to learn alongside their journey as well. I’d love to skip a monkey bar with Scotland. Idris asked today if he could learn to bake a cake this week. So, we will bake a cake together.

Maybe it’s because my kids are as eager to learn as I am. We can nerd out together at the prospect of the new. We can laugh together as we burn our first cake or fall on those monkey bars before dusting ourselves off and trying again. 

I’m also realizing that when I’m with my kids I am my most authentic self. There isn’t an ounce of feeling like I need to perform. No feeling like I need to be smarter than I am. To prove myself. No acting as if I like something when I don’t. I can be honest and comfortable. At a total ease. So, of course I want to be with them while I experience life. While I learn and explore and grow. 

It all comes back to connection for me. My desire to not be alone and to not learn by myself has less to do with a fear of loneliness and much more to do with a legitimate joy that comes from human connection. And that doesn’t stop at my kids. I’ll be honest, spending every waking hour with a baby or toddler can be challenging, but my kids are at a great age now. I enjoy spending time with them. They’re always excited to try new things while making me laugh in the process. They often even get through an entire day without turning into monsters. Not every day, trust me they both have their moments, but I have found this summer that the days when they act out or get frustrated or throw mega tantrums are the days when I spend the least amount of time with them. When I’m not engaging. When they’re watching TV. When they are bored. When they aren’t learning. 

And as I write this, I’m finding that I feel the same way. That in the moments when I’m not acquiring knowledge or pursuing a new skill, I feel the worst. I feel like I’m in a rut. I’m in a slump. When there isn’t something new, I feel, well, bored. And I think this goes back to my years of switching jobs and not liking the feeling of complacency. I love chasing something fresh and maybe this is it. It’s my desire to absorb a new ability. To seek out mastery and expertise. It invigorates me. The very thought of a new experience is exhilarating.

What I’m figuring out is that through this process of life, of being a mom, so much of the joy comes from learning with my children. And it’s within the context of being a parent that I’m finding myself. And so, I need to make sure that when I’m doing these new ‘to learn’ things and discovering new aspects of the world, that I do it alongside my kids. As a family. I want to see the world with them. I want to hike new mountains with them. I want to learn languages with them. I want to learn to bake with them. And it will be messier, and it’ll take longer, and I will need more patience. But it will teach me more about that act because I will have the ability to look at it through their eyes. Through the eyes of kids who are unbiased. Kids who are not bitter. Kids who are not jaded. Kids who are still excited. Ready to soak it up. Kids who allow me to do the same. Again, it’s while I’m around my kids that I am the most me I’ve ever been, and this is the way I want to learn. To be unashamed. To not get embarrassed. To only look forward to the process. 

This is how I want to spend my days. Learning with my kids. Failing with my kids. Experiencing life with my kids. Before they grow into teenagers, and we all need our space.

I love you, Mom.

Love,

Rachel