I spent the first 22 years of my life in the Midwest, but after four years in Okinawa and Hawaii I eat sushi more easily with chopsticks than with a fork, we traded out country roads in old trucks for paddle boarding on the weekends, and my toddler’s favorite dinner for years was poke.
After trying to be Floridians for a year or two, we left again: We now aim to be as European as we can be; we traded out the ocean and warm weather for Luxembourg’s cool summers and old stone castles. We traded out the sharks and alligators for the wild boars barreling down the forest hills in west Germany.
We do chaos here, with two young boys, and a lot of days are hard.
We do places; lakes and oceans and walking paths and parks.
We do learning; different people, different plants, different animals, different languages.
Here are some things that I write about, some things I believe:
I believe in telling the truth, but doing it the right way.
I believe in meeting our kids where they are, but also preparing them for who we all will be.
I believe in sacrifice and all consuming love, but also that sometimes those things are simply more than anyone can bear.
I believe in change, but also in the humor and value of the bad days.
I believe there are places where everything is enough, but that some places and moments just can’t last.
I believe that some relationships last for generations, and some are perfect and brilliant for just a moment.
I believe that sometimes perfectly normal things can become extraordinary.
I believe it’s always possible to start over, but that sometimes you just have to stay.
I believe in seeing everything in all its different shapes and sizes, but sometimes it’s just time to leave.
I believe in the power of the open prairie and the traditions of Hawaii.
I believe wholeheartedly in adventure, but sometimes, (maybe often), our adventures end underwater, like this.
Or almost drowned, like this.
Or barely making it off an island before a blizzard only to get stuck in an airport, like this.
Or in just wondering why in the world we do the trips we do, like this.
Yet somehow, most of all, I believe that it’s all worth it anyway.
Dana
