When we planned this trip, we conceptually spoke about how important it would be that we carve out time for ourselves individually. As much as being with the family all the time was great, we said we would take turns to give each of us adults time alone every week.
It has been 3 full months since we started our travels, it’s amazing how fast time flies. Up till 2 weeks ago, we haven’t made good of our promise to each other except for 2 days in Galapagos Islands when we went diving. Granted there was a period of 2.5 weeks that I had to leave Mr.C alone with the kids as I went back for a family emergency.
At our 3 month mark now, we’re facing a bit of a lull and a bit of travel fatigue even! We have decided to finally take an extra week in Cusco, Peru with no real activity lined up but just to live with the kids and catch up on life which allows me to reflect on that promise we made to each other and how important it is.
The truth is we completely forgot about that promise because we have been having fun together the entire time that we never considered our “me time”. Cusco gave us that “me time” without us realizing it was what we, quite wisely, promised each other to begin with.
You see, Cusco is teeming with activities and some of it are at very high altitude so we can’t take the kids. In order to experience these activities, we had to take turns without the kids. Quite like how we took turns to dive in Galapagos which inadvertently turn out to be our time with ourselves.
We talk about being deliberate with our lives and yet we seem to have let ourselves down here somehow, without even realizing it! The children truly take up our entire day and between having meals ready (either bought or prepared), some teaching time, some play time and general tending to the kids, we have very little time for ourselves or even each other!
I find it interesting how these realizations surface and then it hits home so hard! We’ve been together almost every single day yet we haven’t really made time for each other! We only realized it when we took up a recommendation for amazing alpaca meat at a place called Nuna Raymi here in Cusco. As we walked in, we noticed a playroom so we sat right beside the playroom and the kids were thrilled. It was happy hours so Mr.C and I were extra thrilled! For the first time since we hit the road, we were having a dinner date essentially. Our kids were fully occupied for the 1.5 hours till we got our food, we were having drinks and completely present for each other.
Turns out, having resigned and having all the time in the world doesn’t make everything work like clockwise!
It doesn’t make the children automatically wonderful and smarter because we are with them all the time and they are having worldly experiences. It doesn’t make us closer to each other just because we are with each other every single day. It doesn’t make us more engrossed in our passion if we don’t lift that book up or practice learning the new language or even dabbling in our creative outlets.
It still takes being 100% deliberate about what you do, how you do it and when you do it.
