Motherhood is a Trip

a short reflection on motherhood & travel 🩷

The thing no one tells you about motherhood is one day, you’ll be walking down the street, hundreds of miles from home, with rain lightly falling and your toddler toddling two steps behind you, clutching a cup of cotton candy ice cream. An older woman will stop in front of you—her cane clicking to a halt on the cobblestone sidewalk.

She’ll smile and ask, “What flavor did she get?” You’ll look down at your baby, who is no longer a baby, and see the blue and pink ice cream dripping down her chin—her grin ear to ear. The woman’s husband will pause, holding the car door open for her. And you’ll stop, nose burning and tears threatening.

You swallow a bite of chocolate ice cream and say, “She wanted cotton candy, like her sister. And because it’s pink.”

She’ll laugh, and you’ll keep walking. But you turn back and see her slowly lowering herself into the car, her husband gripping her elbow. She’ll murmur something, smiling and laughing to him—and you turn away, feeling like you’re listening in on a secret.

You’ll wonder if she’s thinking of her kids on a beach vacation thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, with sticky ice cream hands and sand in their only pair of shoes. You’ll wonder if she remembers the hard parts of traveling with kids or only the smiles on their faces after getting an ice cream cone.

You’ll take another bite of ice cream, thinking about how flushed and sweaty you were minutes ago—despite the rain—wondering if taking a family vacation was worth the hassle.

Will they remember any of this anyway?

And then you’ll wonder if someday you'll be lucky enough to be that woman—pausing to notice an ordinary moment that’s anything but ordinary. Part of you wants to run back to ask her, “Will it get easier? Do you remember the hard times or only the good? Am I doing a good job?”

But you don’t.

You reach down and clasp those sticky fingers, knowing some things you can’t know until you know.

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I posted this short piece on my Instagram page two years ago following a family trip to the Oregon coast. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve written, and I wanted it to have a home here. 💚

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