Mapping the Gap

Why. I like to establish things explicitly. My Brit-reared, Aussie-cool husband does not. In fact, it irritates him noticeably, my American habit of “stating the obvious.”  Regardless, I need to have the driving force of any major project well-defined in my mind. Clarity of vision summons reality in my experience.  The Why must be clear.  So, at the outset, my partner (begrudgingly) and I (ardently) did a brainstorm of our purpose on the first page of our gap year planning notebook.  Why were we doing this? Why did we want to take a gap year with our three fairly feral boys and travel around the world?  Why did we want to sell our house, quit my jobs, extract our many roots and leave our recently-planted home? Well, it turned out, there were a lot of reasons. Despite outward appearances, our life was full of gaps. The Whys were closing in.

Why #1: Something Rotten

Our children are struggling.  In ways that cannot be ignored.  In ways that literally slap us across the face.  In ways that turn heads, require medical appointments, and in ways that make “normal” living an impossible fantasy, our children are struggling.  The choppy waters of diagnosed and undiagnosed challenges are throwing us around like a family of rag dolls.  Trying to keep pace on the standard treadmill of life is not working out so well.  My children are not having the childhood they should, not near the one I had imagined.  And despite unwitnessed herculean efforts, my partner and I are not having a parenthood that could be called reasonable.

While I am not at all certain a gap year will remedy this, we are at least making the space for some shifting.  We are removing variables, altering parameters, and upturning all the boxes we ask our children to fit into.  Giving up all work and community involvement, my main employment this year is mothering.  To mother.  I like verbing this word.  With intention, with focus, with observation, and consideration, I plan to mother the ever-living sh*t out of this year.  Detached from outcome, my sole intention is to show up fully for these boys because something is, indeed, “rotten in the state of Denmark,” and we simply cannot let it go on.

Why #2: Tech Slavery

It’s hard to verbalise how infected I feel by the presence of screens in modern life.  How soiled.  How entrenched.  How corrupted I feel the human spirit has become.  How malformed our inner lives can grow.  We are all surrounded by a sickening excess of digital input. Too many platforms have too many entry points to our sacred mind space. Too many options, too many opinions, too much information. The excess of content upsets my stomach.  The streaming, the scrolling, the subscribing, the socials.  The number of apps required to rear my human offspring is totally mad.  I’m sick of it.  I’m sick of watching my kids being mesmerised by the manipulative algorithms and social normalcy of it all. It’s changing the pathways of their brains, and I am ready to pull the plug.  I know the tech tide of our culture is one I’ll have to learn to flow with, but I want to snag our life out of the current for a bit.  Just for a bit.  Not that we aren’t bringing screens.  We are.  Damn it.  We are.  I am just hoping to drastically change how we engage with them.  Send me strength.   

Why #3: A Vocational Vacuum

Whenever I have said, “I’m a nurse,” there has always been a shadow voice inside that’s said, “No, I’m not.”  I don’t know why.  I don’t think it’s a confidence thing.  I did great in nursing school, I get positive work reviews, and I have certainly done all I can to be a competent nurse.  But that lack of vocational identification has been there since I became a nurse seven years ago.  Maybe it’s because I think nurses are badass, and I don’t feel clinically badass.  Maybe it’s because I loved teaching, and I don’t love nursing in the same enlivening way.

Regardless, over the past couple years, the voice has gotten stronger.  In random moments at the medical practice, I would almost feel the words, “You don’t belong here.”  As weird as that sounds, I had a persistent and strengthening sense that I was suppose to be somewhere else.  I even felt dizzy and took my own blood pressure.  It was always normal.  When the idea of this gap year germinated, it felt like an answer to this odd calling.  I still don’t know where I ought to be, but at least I am available for something to move in.  For now, anyway, Mom/Mum is the job title. (Credentials under review.)

Why #4: My Language Deficit

Confession:  I taught English as a second language for 14 years, and I don’t speak a second language properly.  Will I manage to rectify this on the trip while schooling my children?  Probably not, but I intended to make some progress in Spanish-speaking countries.

Why #5: Privilege

Another confession: I always misspell the word “privilege.”  How ironic that I cannot even spell the word that defines my status in the world.  How demonstrative of said privilege that I haven’t even bothered to retain its spelling.  Another very good Why. Following this notion of oblivious privilege, one cannot fully comprehend one’s status in a “developed” country without leaving it to experience the “un” and the “under” developed in the world.  Much learning lies in the true experience of this comparison.  I both fear and delight to imagine the insights my children will gain when they see themselves in the reflections of those less fortunate.  Much navigation lies ahead.  Hard miles, I suspect. But they are miles I feel privileged to walk.

Why #6: Boldness

The final Why is my favourite.  It’s the Why that truly fuels this whole operation.  The final Why is actually, “Why not?”  The true spirit of this gap year and the lesson I want my children to absorb above all is simply achieved in the going. We tick this box at the starting gun.  I ticked this box when I quit my jobs, when we signed our real estate contract, and when I called to shut off the internet.  The biggest Why is to teach our kids that none of this is real.  None of the parameters that are so clearly set out and widely followed have to map the course of their lives.  All the rules they give you should be questioned.  All the pathways they offer are not a comprehensive list.  All the junk you are sold will burn in the fires, gather dust in the shed, and eventually profit the landfills.  It’s all a very believable illusion. The messaging is pervasive.  I see my kids buying it hook, line, and sinker, and I cringe at the insult to their spirits. 

There is nothing to fear when you are bold.  When your deathday arrives, what matters isn’t the income, the resume, the bragging rights, the stability, the security, the admiration or whatever else we are told we should be building and chasing.  What matters (to me) is the wakefulness of living that you were able to maintain through your days.  The power you claimed over your own life.  The boldness with which you authored your own story.  I want my kids to get this.

Sure, we had many other reasons on this list: appreciation of diversity, language exposure, global citizenry, autonomy from peer groups, fortifying the family unit, consideration of global religions, respect for various art forms, awareness of foreign affairs, problem-solving, sitting with boredom, becoming travel savvy, enlivening history.  And more.  There are lots of Whys, but most of these Whys are about deeply living and being awake in the world.  Boldness of living is the Why behind it all.  It’s the magic that tingles around my cheeks and neck as I watch our present reality implode into boxes.  It’s the genius that makes me smile up at the sky surrounded by mice-poo covered toys from our emptying shed.  It’s the power I have as I imagine the swells of gratitude I will feel when reflecting on this gap year for the rest of my life. 

Boldness.  I hope my kids get it.  Even if all they ever do is paint their walls a bold chartreuse, I want my kids to know that they can do whatever the hell they want with their one life.  They have that great privilege. I hope they get it.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.“ – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe