*tap tap taps the mic*
"Is this thing on?"
It's been a minute.
Hi again! Or hi for the first time. For those reading for the first time, I'm Nasrene. My Blogger profile is over there to the right, but my identity would be better summed up by the following:
Way back in June 2010 I made a blog called My 30 Before 30. The plan was to document 30 goals I attempted to complete before I turned 30 in June of 2011. I had so! much! fun! with that project that I continued documenting the adventures I went on (usually accompanied by my toddler daughter Sadira) with friends and family. I look back on these posts now so grateful that I took the time to document these memories...you can take that stroll down memory lane at My 30 Project.
Then in April 2014 something tragic happened. (Prepare your heart for this one...) I was pregnant with my second child, a son, and lost him to preterm birth at 22 weeks. It was the darkest time of my life, and he is so missed and loved and will be forever. At that time I did the only thing I knew how to do, and that was to write; grieving out loud as a form of coping. I blogged at Anchors for Reece and was able to connect with so many incredible people. To this day I think it's one of the bravest things I've ever done (though I had no clue of it, at the time).
Writing and connecting with others through the form of blogging has been an outlet to share some of my happiest memories and some of my deepest sorrows. It's always been in the back of my mind to begin blogging about our travel adventures, because travel, like blogging, is a way I've connected with others during the highest highs and the lowest lows. Travel is simultaneously celebratory and therapeutic. It uplifts and it heals. The world awaits and is the greatest teacher....teaching us about the expanse of humanity while also helping us "figure ourselves out" when we feel our most lost.
Soon after Sadira was born we started exploring and we've never stopped. We travelled so much I often found myself saying, "Have baby, will travel!" to my out-of-town friends. Sadira took her first flight at 3 months old, and by 9 months old I was flying solo with her from Baltimore to Honolulu. She learned to ice skate at Rockefeller plaza in NYC. She had driven the entire scenic California coast twice by the time she was 7 years old. We celebrated her 10th birthday with a whirlwind trip to Paris. Last year we took a family trip to Italy to celebrate my best friend's 40th birthday. And this is just a sample of our adventures.
Fast forward now to December 2020. I have been feeling stagnant and have definitely felt the urge to start writing again. Coincidentally that cute toddler that I used to blog about it? Well, she went and turned 13 last month...I know, I know, how rude, amiright? But it's what these kids to...they grow up on us, while we remain ageless, frozen in time (ha!)
Now I fully recognize that travel is a luxury, so I feel it important to add that our family has simply prioritized travel. Some people value getting new cars, or newer homes, and we've chosen to value travel. There is no mysterious person bankrolling our travel plans, we just budget and save for travel like anything else. Trust and believe there will be no PS5 under the Christmas tree this year...but there might be plane tickets!
So here we are, at the tail end of 2020, a year that has challenged us ALL, and I feel so grateful to be ending this year with my family happy and healthy. This year has been a struggle as we watched plan after plan be cancelled. A London/Paris Spring Break trip was the first to hit the chopping block, just weeks after the coronavirus pandemic began. And many, many more soon followed.
In recent weeks, we've discovered that we can still travel safely during this crazy time, fulfilling our wanderlust, keeping our mental health in tact, and still keeping ourselves and others safe from this terrible virus by just getting a bit more creative! Local daytrips in our home state that we never knew existed, weekends just over the state border with our besties (who we have chosen to be "exposed" to this whole quarantine since they live one street over and are basically an extension of our family), and of course lots and lots of planning new adventures when the world gets back to some semblance of normalcy, whenever that may be.
So here we are. About to embark on a new blog adventure, Have Teenager, Will Travel! Where we explore the eyerolls, the grumpy attitudes, the "will you PLEASE just get off your phone for ONE second?" right along side the laughs, the adventures, the new discoveries, and whole lotta love.
Won't you join us? Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride...after all, I Have Teenager Will Travel!
