The Journey Matters as Much as the Destination
How my kid taught me a precious lesson about staying present and awake to the path, instead of fixated on outcome, particularly when the path gets hard and you can't wait to finally 'get there'.
I still vividly remember the mixture of awe and impatience on our walks as my (then) toddler stopped to smell every flower, study every pebble and marvel at every insect along the way. For me, a working mom desperately trying to juggle the demands of a busy life, our walks were often functional. A chance to stretch our legs, take my daughter outside in the fresh air, and get her tired and ready for a healthy lunch and afternoon nap. I would have loved for us to actually ‘walk’ on our walks instead of taking 20 minutes to cover every 50 meters of our path around the block and into our local park. Sometimes we never made it to the park, because she was too fascinated by all the small treasures she’d discover along the way.
In my moments of clarity and reflection, I’d be able to slow my mind (and my body) enough to attune to her wonder. We’d kneel by the roadside to study a small flower that had seemed to appear overnight as if by magic. We’d stop and mourn over the dead body of a small bird, wondering what might have happened to it. I’d catch my breath as she asked, for the first time, what death was and what it felt like to be no more. I’d listen to her talk about her fear of death and ask me about my own. And then I’d answer in the best and most honest way I could that I too shared that fear and I didn’t know what death was, nor what it felt like. I remember the depth of that moment, as I stepped, for the first time, off the all-knowing pedestal my child had erected for me and revealed to her the excruciating vulnerability of being merely human. Had I not slowed enough to truly notice that dead bird and sit in the discomfort of studying it instead of quickly walking by, that precious, painful, beautiful moment would not have happened. And something might have been lost.
This dichotomy between our grown-up obsession to get to the outcome versus our children’s awareness that the Path itself is the gift has stayed with us through the years and its precious lessons have kept coming. The most recent iteration came as we - my husband, our now 9-year-old daughter and I - moved into a new home in Australia, the country that welcomed us almost six years ago and recently adopted us wholly as its citizens. We said goodbye to the rental that witnessed our new migrant unravellings and sinuous journey of starting life over and finding our feet in a new world, and moved 20 minutes away into our very own cozy little house - a green oasis holding the promise of a new beginning.
And while in every way this moment is a celebration, we are imperfect creatures, beholden to old patterns and always one step away from fallback. The last time we moved, 6 years previously - albeit an even more disruptive move, as it meant leaving our country and whole lives behind - my husband and I faced the biggest hurdle in our 12-year relationship. Our insecurities surfaced and every decision became a spark for conflict - what mattress to buy, how to assemble our new shelves (to this day I think IKEA furniture is the ultimate test of a relationship!), how to manage our daughter’s tantrums as she went through her own breakdown, grieving the loss of friends and struggling to adjust to school in a language she didn’t speak. Memorably, it was our new kitchen island that brought us as close to the brink of disaster as we’ve ever been as a couple but also served as a hugely important moment of reckoning about who we each were, how we made decisions and what we truly needed from each-other (an episode deserving its own story, which I’ve shared here).
Fast forward 6 years, and we were facing a new move. This time we were more settled, but not so settled as to have parted ways with our old gremlins. We had both wanted this home so much - seeing it as the culmination of a gruelling journey of rebuilding our lives. We both imagined the joy of seeing our daughter and her beloved dog run around in this bigger yard, the quiet dinner on our terrace, and the extra space for her to invite friends for sleepovers. Yet, between your ideal image of the destination and the convoluted journey of actually buying a house, there was a big space and in that space, our anxiety and impatience reared their heads. We started snapping at each other over how to negotiate a better price or who would better deal with the real estate agent. We hadn’t even signed the papers and the tension was palpable.
Then, one night, our wise kid looked at both of us and said: “Do you guys know I couldn’t care less where we live, as long as I’m with you both and my Otto?”. She paused, then she added: “But I do care about you two getting upset with each other.”
Her words hit us like a cold shower. There we were again. Falling back. Reverting to smaller versions of ourselves. And here was our 9-year-old reminding us what truly mattered. Again we were getting lost trying to reach an outcome. Again she forced us to slow down and smell the flowers along the way.
That night, after she went to bed, we sat down for a heart-to-heart. We realised how laser-focused we had been on completing this home-ownership process, how impatient and anxious we had become and how much our own well-being and our family’s harmony were falling by the wayside.
We gave ourselves grace - we were tired. Anybody who has been through a migration journey knows how taxing it can be. No wonder we couldn’t wait for this chapter to be over! We tapped into gratitude: we had come so far in such a short time! We had worked so hard and supported each other so fiercely! We had built a new life we all loved and had grown so much in the process. We tapped into love which, for both of us, is the very foundation spurring every choice we have ever made together - for each other and the child we adore. And then we tapped into humbleness - we had lost sight of what the intention of owning our home was all about - stability, joy, slow growth (versus all the running and goal chasing of previous years); quality time with each other; creating new happy memories for the next few years as our (still) young child is making her way into teenage land and then into adulthood.
We reframed our intention from “get into the new house” to “make the house move a joyful process for all three of us”. We decided to prioritise harmony and love over effectiveness. We reminded each other of our respective edges - my pattern of rushing things, hoarding responsibility by taking on every possible task and my husband’s pattern of risk aversion, seeing the possible negatives in most circumstances and needing more time to think through and work through options before making a decision. We acknowledged the clumsiness that made each of us terrible at DIY projects (and, together, disastrous) - a major source of frustration for both of us in the past. We vowed to stick with what we were good at - which meant NOT assembling any furniture ourselves.
I started sharing my seemingly endless to-do list with him and relished seeing the boxes being ticked off (and me not having to do it all). We consulted on every decision through the whole process and when unsure, slept on it before we took the next step (something that will always be excruciatingly hard for me). We got more accepting of delays and bureaucratic setbacks as normal parts of the process, versus ominous signs something was terribly wrong. We openly spoke of our anxiety without blaming each other for it. We held space for each of our worries without trying to make it better (sitting with a loved one’s discomfort instead of trying to fix it is SO hard, and yet SO healing). We paid more attention to the hints of exhaustion and overwhelm - our nerves on edge - and didn’t push conversations when our minds weren’t in the right place. We involved our daughter in decisions that impacted her and were reminded of how many sound and wise ideas she has. As a result, she felt more engaged in the whole process and more excited about the change. She also got to share some of the work with us, doing her bit of the thankless job of sorting, packing and sifting through years of accumulated ‘stuff’ - both in our old house and our minds and hearts. And we managed to do all of that together while keeping a sense of humour and playfulness.
Almost two months after that crossroad conversation we’re well and truly settled in our new home and - a first for us - we managed to navigate the whole process (almost) seamlessly. We stayed kind to each other and prioritised joy over efficiency every time.
We managed to laugh at our mistakes and appreciate the irony of our stumblings - and we did stumble! Like the other day when I bristled as our kid shook the milk bottle, the lid dropped and milk flew all over our shiny kitchen floor and she looked at me - a twinkle in her eye (and a mop in her hand) and said: “You do realise you’re getting worked up over spilt milk mom!” We all started laughing.
How many times in life do we get worked up over spilt milk? How many times in life do we rush towards a long-awaited milestone - at work or home - only to reach the end completely exhausted, our relationships in tatters, having had an utterly miserable time along the way and unable to fully enjoy the destination we’ve worked so hard to reach?
Again, my child is teaching me how to be more deserving of the title of ‘grown-up’. And frankly, I’m proud of how I’ve learnt this particular lesson and of the many patterns my husband and I managed to re-write in just a few short weeks!
Will this last? If experience is any guide, wisdom and maturity are not absolute faculties you access and never lose, but rather muscles you train over and over again. As soon as you stop training, your ‘maturity fitness’ starts dropping. I’m pretty sure my relationship has new rough patches ahead, but, if this experience has taught us anything, is that purposefully stopping to notice HOW we are travelling the path matters as much, if not more than WHERE we aim to get to.
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