I’m not precisely a licensed Swiftie (although I’m undoubtedly the mom of 1). However today I do don a blue string bracelet on my left arm that spells out “F-E-A-R-L-E-S-S” in wood beads. A pricey buddy despatched it to me earlier this 12 months when our household was in disaster, after she learn within the Conscious Return publication what my “phrase of the 12 months” was for 2024. And simply final week, as we sat within the Alps consuming gooey mountain cheese with a French household that used to stay in our Washington, DC, neighborhood, my buddy Isabelle requested if sporting the bracelet labored. Did I consider the phrase and what it meant to me every morning once I put it on?
Most mornings, sure. Most mornings, I do pause and can myself some much less fearful residing. Which is what landed me in Binz, Germany, penning this weblog submit from a solarium overlooking an obscure Baltic city.
Two Years In the past
Perhaps it was fearlessness two years in the past in 2022, when in some random dialog, my youngsters queried, “Mommy, the place will the subsequent Olympics be held?” Google to the rescue, after all. Paris 2024 popped up on my display, adopted by an inviting immediate. “Enter your e-mail deal with right here,” the web page teased, “to enter the ticket sale lottery.”
Was it fearlessness again then that led me to place my e-mail deal with into the Olympic webpage pop-up? Maybe not. Extra doubtless it was a wistful “wouldn’t that be good” angle, and principally doubt that sending my deal with off to the spam-filled netherworld would quantity to something. I didn’t have a clue about how the Olympic-ticket-buying factor labored. In fact, I assumed I wanted to have some fancy schmancy essential contact get me the tickets. And I believed I’d must take out a second mortgage on our house to have the ability to afford them.
Quick ahead a full 12 months, to Mom’s Day, 2023. I hadn’t thought even as soon as within the prior months about having submitted that on-line type. I rolled off the bed good and late (isn’t sleeping in a superb Mom’s Day present!?) and wandered bleary-eyed to my cellphone. As I struggled to get the sleep out of my eyes sufficient to see the display, I noticed an e-mail with a topic line that learn: “You had been profitable within the draw!” It seemed to be from the Paris Video games official ticketing web site.
I needed to learn the e-mail a number of occasions, earlier than I noticed that it wasn’t spam, however fairly an honest-to-goodness hyperlink to take part within the Olympic ticket lottery. I had 48 hours, the e-mail knowledgeable me, to enter the lottery system for a 30-minute window, to pick from what was left. “What was left?” I needed to get in there quick, I figured.
I bounded down the steps shaking and virtually screaming, “We bought tickets to the Olympics! Blissful Mom’s Day to me! Everyone to the desk now!”
That was the vital second. The fearless second. The one when my husband and I locked eyes and rapidly tried to determine. Are we doing this? Actually doing this? Sure, we met in France. Sure, we each wished to return. And sure, this may be unbelievable. However how a lot would this price? May we actually do one thing so loopy as attending the Olympic video games? How may we presumably afford this? Gained’t Europe be overrun with vacationers in the course of the Video games? The place would we keep? What state would our youngsters be in? And sure, the recovering people-pleaser in me began down a path of: what is going to folks consider us if we go? Will I get the envy-filled facet eye and be regarded as snobby?
One way or the other, and motivated by an expiring lottery window, we determined to go for it. To determine a means to do that factor. To be fearless.
Fearless Resolution-Making, Once more and Once more
On the eating room desk, I instructed every youngster to make an inventory of 5 occasions they wish to see. The lottery had been open for at the very least every week or two by the point I bought the fateful e-mail, so a lot of tickets had been more likely to already be gone, or to be astronomically costly. I logged into the platform, holding my breath. After determining how one can use the system, I found that a lot of the foremost occasions had certainly been bought out. Monitor & area: gone. Swimming and diving: gone. Opening ceremonies? Positive, we may sit alongside the Seine for one thing like $2,000+ per particular person, however that bought a fast veto.
Miraculously, although, precisely one occasion was left on every of my youngsters’ want lists. My youngest son had listed archery. They nonetheless had tickets left for the lads’s & girls’s combined archery occasion in Paris, which included a medal ceremony. And there have been nonetheless loads of tickets left for soccer, which was on my eldest son’s listing. As a result of my husband had lived in Lyon 20+ years in the past, we determined to get tickets to the lads’s semi-final soccer match that was going to be held there. All the tickets – for actually nice seats – had been between $100 and $200 per ticket. A lot lower than a T. Swift live performance anyplace on the earth…or so I’ve heard.
Because the months handed main as much as our journey, I began to surprise how on earth we’d really go. The early a part of 2024 was a darkish gap of child psychological well being crises. Leaving Washington, DC, not to mention flying to Europe, appeared each not possible and utterly bananas. We stored laying aside shopping for airplane tickets. “We’ll wait only one extra month…” we mentioned, a number of months in a row.
Lastly, within the spring, we needed to determine: purchase the tickets and make a go at it? Or abandon our plan? Once more, I wanted to summon the energy of that bracelet. My husband and I shook our heads whereas saying one thing like “what the heck are we doing?!” and acquired the airplane tickets. Then we recognized all of the locations and other people we may contact whereas we had been in Europe, if both of our youngsters wanted emergency help. The primary buddy we had been visiting was a hospital CEO, in order that gave us at the very least some reassurance that we may get assist if we wanted it.
Les Jeux Olympiques
So sure, we made it to Europe, the place we’ve been for in regards to the previous two weeks. Whereas it hasn’t been totally uneventful on the child psychological well being entrance, we haven’t wanted any emergency companies (but). We hold placing one foot in entrance of the opposite. Minimizing our expectations of every day. And savoring the truth that we are literally right here.
On the archery match in Paris, we skilled the very best of the Olympic spirit. Mexicans to our left, Italians in entrance of us, South Koreans behind us, all of us cheered on each other’s athletes. Danced to the music of a French band that got here out to entertain the gang. And stared in awe on the precision of those archers who shot arrows over enormous distances into tiny areas. We watched the American combined archery workforce of Brady Ellison and Casey Kaufhold, win the primary archery medal for the US in many years. And we noticed the tears of their eyes after they had been awarded their bronze medals.
In Lyon, we noticed the French males’s soccer workforce win towards Egypt with 30-minutes of prolonged time in a stadium of stable blue-blanc-rouge. We sang the Marseillaise. Discovered some new chants in French, together with “Qui ne saute pas n’est pas Francais!” (“Whoever isn’t leaping isn’t French!”). And we watched our youngsters get on the Jumbotron many times, as soon as with computer-generated imaging making it appear like they had been sporting can-can skirts. You’ll be able to’t make these items up.
I’ve bought heaps extra to consider and write about our journey, however for right this moment, I’ll depart you with this recommendation. Should you don’t have a bucket listing, dare to begin one. When you’ve got one (or at the very least some concepts of what you’d love to do at some level in life), put plans in place to do one of many issues on that listing. Even when it takes a number of years.
Being a working guardian takes day by day braveness, so I do know you are able to do this. Be fearless. Or just be scared and do the factor anyway.
