There are seldom days that don’t fly by…you wake up, turn around, and it’s already time to unwind for bed.
Time passes by…
There are many weeks where the Monday started and within the blink of an eye it’s Friday afternoon.
Yesterday was January and now it’s already the end of April.
A short time ago I was 25 and this year I hit the 45.
Years pass by and if I don’t realise it for myself, I see it when I look at my son who was just born and now starts school in summer.
We can’t go back, but what we can is to enjoy!
Cherish the time we have, do the things we love, stop and breathe and smile.
Oftentimes I want to write away my thoughts but in most cases it stays „I want“ because the dishwasher beeps or it’s time for the kindergarten pick up.
This time I write above the clouds. Arrival in Boston is scheduled in one hour and fifty-two minutes. After two years it’s my first business trip and it brings me right on the other side of the ocean. Which is nice, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining, I’m just torn apart each time.
To wave goodbye to a six-year old who tries to be strong and fights his tears is hard!
Motherhood is hard!
I’m so proud of him and I care more than I would have ever have been able to imagine. He is the greatest achievement of my life. No work career can be better than raising this wonderful little being.
When his tiny arms squeeze me tight and he tells me that he loves me to the moon and further, that’s all! There’s nothing to top it!
Now he’s strong and will sleep four whole nights in my bed next to my husband until we are back together.
Everyone is telling me to enjoy, time alone is something mom’s rarely have, to have fun. But honestly, you know what? I am strong too! I wiped my tears away at the airport too. I also will count the nights until I am back in the plane which hasn‘t even landed.
When I was still at the airport, waiting for boarding, my husband texted me from home what to prepare for our son to eat. Even there, I already told him, I would have loved to be back in our kitchen to prepare a plate for him with what he likes most.
This weirdness is called motherhood too. It is weird because day in day out I don’t see how precious these simple mundane moments are, but just knowing that I won’t have them for only a short time shows me the truth.
Life is precious…
Every single simple moment means the world to our children! Hearing us moms around is their safe haven and that’s exactly what they deserve!
I will check how many things I can buy here for him, half of my suitcase is empty to be filled with clothes and toys, hoping that the next chance to come over is far in the future and not coming too fast. I don’t want to think about another goodbye, I want the daily chaos.
But you know, no matter how much I will buy, the most important will be to hug one another again as soon as I’m outside of the security area.
I know that we moms are bears and that we can move mountains when needed. But please take care! Let go of the unimportant and focus on what makes lasting memories.
It won’t be the long cooked dinner where you were hidden in the kitchen for hours, the forgotten spaghetti which glue together because you were playing on the floor will last in your childrens memory.
Travelling for work sounds fancy – but this is the real-life part of it.
It’s 4 am – I’m freezing and beyond tired.
Sitting on a Canadian air plane with hot black tea, as I needed something warm, and a bag of pretzels in front of me.
Thoughts are shifting from the purpose of life to let me finally sleep and back.
This life is crazy.
The full moon is following us all the way from Toronto to Raleigh, it’s shining brightly and is bigger than last time.
Somehow the moon is always earthing me, bringing me down to what really counts.
Being alone here isn’t it. I miss my family and try to shift the thought from missing to being thankful that I am loved.
It will be a firework of kisses and hugs when I return. How lucky am I?
That’s the essence, the purest kind of life purposes, family hugs, wet toddler kisses, husband hugs that feel like safe haven, unity.
I’m almost 20 hours awake now and after so many hours of travelling the only important thought is about my two men, snuggled up home deeply sleeping in our bed.
This is the second time that I travel alone since our son is born. I miss him like crazy, his tiny little hand searching for me in the night to sleep, assured that he’s safe. His hugs so tight and so full of love around my neck.
That is all that matters, he, my husband, my family. I needs sometimes a full moon night all alone to remember what is known deep inside. We forget too offen because daily life occupies and stresses us too much.
All the small wonderful moments, nothing more is needed to be happy.
Being so far away is somehow scary, as a mom you not only start to feel a love beyond imagination, you also start to worry in a way you never thought about.
Many of the worries are like an instinct and naturally good, they serve you and don’t disturb. But there are also worries which my husband would call ridiculous. Moms “What ifs” like “what if he falls and I cannot hug him and kiss the pain away as I always do?”. Yes, that one is maybe ridiculous because I know that his dad can take care, I know that I cannot protect him his entire life, I know he will handle it without me, but was someone ever thinking about me?
I want to be there, I am not ready to let go, I feel the pain deeper than anything as he’s the most important part of me. Oh my, did I write that?
Am I now a ridiculous helicopter mom?
No, I’m not and I can tell you why.
Because I am sitting on a plane on the other of the globe, I left him alone with my husband and I know that this is more than fine. Rational I know all of it! I let him discover the world and am not overprotective, even if I would like to be.
But emotionally, mentally, this is the hardest part of motherhood, letting go.
I put the pretzels in my bag. I guess my suitcase will be full of tiny things for him because he likes them. Apart from that, it’s 4:30 am – who eats pretzels at this time?
Ok, it’s 10:30 pm over here but I have mentally not arrived in this time zone. I could sleep standing now.
We prepare for landing and the thing what I want most now is rush as fast as I can to the hotel, jump into the bed and fall asleep thinking of how safe and sound he sleeps next to my husband.
As long as you are working, the missing subsides a tiny bit…
Its 3 pm – four days later. Bright daylight and with short sleeves on the plane to Toronto. You can’t believe how good that feels. These past days were great, tired, new, exhausted, successful, and so much more. I worked more than on normal days but staying in a hotel and evenings in restaurants also meant I had less to do after work than on normal days at home. No cooking, washing, cleaning. Many pros and cons, at the end, the cons definitely are more because everything I see while travelling is only my memory and especially when I discover new areas I want to share these memories. I want to tell my husband “do you remember that humid warm evening where we went to the Angus Barn in Durham and had a delicious steak?”. I want to ask my son if he liked all those big trucks on the street which are much bigger than what we see at home.
I can’t. I can try to capture as much as I want on photographs but at the end of the day it will only be my memory.
There is still a long flight ahead of me and many thoughts to come and words to write but for now I just stare out of the window, let my eyes be blinded by the white clouds we fly through, and dream away so that my soul rests. I’m getting closer to home, the place where my heart beats faster and feels more at ease, surrounded by my family and hugged and kissed. Soon.
It’s 11pm and we just departed – that’s 5am in Germany already and means we will surely not arrive as planned.
First we were getting a one-hour delay due to bad weather conditions, which I personally love so much. The incoming plane wasn’t allowed to land on time because of heavy rain. Great! And I’m sitting at the airport and wonder if we are allowed to start once the plane is there or if these weather conditions influence our start as well. I already thought about a bumpy ride back.
But – because of late arrival – our plane got an outside parking position to be fast ready to go (instead of waiting for a free gate). Sounds good, right? Our plane also got covered stairs for us! They care that we are not getting wet on the way from the shuttle to the plane, wohoo. Another plus!
Did I say stairs? I’d rather become wet instead after what happened then. It took the ground staff in Toronto over an hour to get exactly these stairs DEtached. It sounds like a joke but that really happened.
Means we are now in total 3 hours behind and I hate it.
But why do I hate it?
I could list several reasons why. I’m tired and hungry, it will take three more hours until I’m finally back home, this week was already long enough, all these things are annoying.
But, what if all of this happened for a reason?
What if we would have ended up in a thunderstorm when departing on time, what if?
There are a million things in life where we won’t be able to find answers, to know why it happened exactly the way it does. But what we know is what is now. Now I am sitting on a plane. I am fine, food will come soon and then I can sleep. When I wake up I will be much closer to my loved ones. All is fine!
Trust and focus on the good and all is fine.
The end of the story are indeed hugs and kisses. A tired mom who plays for hours, trying to catch up on the missed time, lots of stories to tell and a warm feeling inside of me to be where I belong. Looking back you may even say that all these thoughts were not necessary, but no, they were. And they will always be, because they are me, all of this is me. Reflecting, thinking, dreaming, listening, hoping, discovering, and so much more is within these thoughts that I will never stop cherishing these full-moon nights, these lonely moments where you are grounded even in a plane across an ocean. This is life.
If you want to read more from me – just jump into my archive and see what post it guides you to. Life is about trust, maybe you pick exactly what you need at this time.
