This time last year we were spending Thanksgiving in Cancun. I posted that I was feeling just a touch sad to be spending it away from extended family, but we went on to have a wonderful basketball season with Orlando there. This blog and all other facets of my business continued to grow, and we made so many memories on Isla Mujeres, celebrating the girls birthdays there, and building a little community there.
Then over the summer we got word that the team in Cancun was not going to be back next year. We spent a few months in limbo, not knowing where Orlando would end up, before the opportunity to play in Israel came up. It was all such a whirlwind, he left within a few days and the girls and I were to remain in San Antonio and keep on keepin’ on. But now we’re just a few days away from traveling to see him over there, and I’m feeling the same hopes/fears from a year ago. What will this new city be like? Will we make friends? Will we find a good Mexican restaurant over there? Ok, the last one might be a stretch, but a girl can dream, right?
We decided to make the trip to Israel, in the end, because it’s fruitless to wish for a “normal” life for us anymore. Orlando isn’t done playing basketball yet, and so we will go wherever it takes him. Even if that means uprooting the girls. Even if that means my work takes a back seat to his sometimes. Essentially, this is what it comes down to: I don’t want an average childhood for my girls. I don’t want them to be “normal”. I want them to walk into kindergarten and have amazing stories to tell of all the places they’ve been and all the languages they’ve learned. I want them to be cultured, be adventurous, be hungry for new experiences. And if I fight to keep them in their bubble while the opportunity for more is right there, I’m doing them a disservice.
So after I worked out the fears this Thanksgiving, I came to this conclusion: I am blessed. I am thankful for this life. I am thankful that I even have the “problem” of worrying whether or not my daughters will pick up a new language in a new country. This isn’t where I would have pictured myself ten years ago, but God’s plan was much, much sweeter. I have all the things I would have dreamed of: a loving family, an exciting career, an optimistic view on life.
But God upped the ante more than I deserve. I’m thankful for friends that keep in touch no matter where I am. I’m thankful for extended family that help us hold down the fort at home while we’re traveling. I’m thankful for a husband that makes the decisions for his life based on how it will help our family years down the road, not just how it will benefit him in the short term. I’m thankful for that small voice in my heart that says, “It’s all going to be ok” when I start to freak out a little bit.
So whether there are big life changes coming for you this Thanksgiving, or you’re just trying to get the pieces in place, I hope you find gratitude in the midst of it all. I hope to take a moment to remember that there are ALWAYS those in the world who would kill for your “problems”. And I hope you give thanks for it all, the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, the perfect and the imperfect. Because life’s a whole lot sweeter when you do.
XO,
A
