The Importance of Memory Making

I had a pretty idyllic childhood in many ways.  Loving parents, an amazing extended family, nice home, great schools, a solid group of friends, great opportunities, the list could go on and on.  Essentially all of my needs were met, and then some.  Was it perfect?  No.  Did I have my struggles and disagreements with my parents?  Yep.  Have I become even more aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a kid as I've learned more about who I am as an adult?  Yep.  But overall it was pretty darn great and I feel fortunate to have had the foundation I did.

Becoming a parent definitely makes you re-examine parts of your life, whether it's thinking about experiences you had vs. what you give to your kids, how you were disciplined vs. how you discipline, or how the entire world has changed since you grew up and what happens when you can't raise your kids in a way that worked for you.  I feel like it's a constant, subconscious pondering, because it seems to impact so many elements of daily life.  How do I react to this?  Am I being inconsistent or hypocritical if I do that?  What if what worked for me is different for my kids?  All you know about parenthood going in is what you experienced from a kid perspective and what you see others do.  Your own parenthood experience is on-the-job training, and I'm convinced that no matter what your previous experiences or perceptions were, so much of it plays out differently with your own kids--whether you want it to or not.  Maybe it's on purpose to break a cycle or address a new obstacle, or maybe it's just because you see a different perspective when it's your turn.  I've had a little of all of that--thanks in part to two kids with ADHD, who both happen to be boys, living in a different city, in a very different 21st century setting, with a pandemic as the cherry on top.  I've constantly questioned my decisions, from discipline to medical care, to what's considered "spoiling" them, to how involved I need to be in certain parts of their life to ensure they gain independence while staying on the right track.  I feel like I'm always hesitant to go too far off course from what I knew as a kid--it worked good enough with me, right?  So what if doing something else ends up being a mistake, even though I had the blueprint already set out for me?  

Anyway, all that overthinking brings me to the point of this post: A couple weeks ago I was thinking about my experiences growing up, and for whatever reason I was thinking about how little travel we actually did as a family of four.  We had one trip to Disney when I was three and an awesome trip to Washington D.C. when I was almost 10.  But our second Disney trip when I was 9 didn't involve my protesting father, and the rest were generally shorter, car-based, weekend-style getaways.  We did Cedar Point (as part of a family wedding weekend) and Canada's Wonderland, and I remember weekends in Detroit and Toronto doing some touristy things.  We also did a long, cramped drive to visit my mom's sister's family in Wisconsin over Christmas break.  There were a few things I did with just my parents after my brother was gone, and even trips a couple separate from my family, but when it came to the four of us, I really couldn't think of much more.  Maybe it was still more than a lot of other people did at the time, I don't know.  And don't get me wrong, we did plenty together locally--Friday night mini golf with ice cream after, Sabres and Bisons games, a couple museum visits, boat rides with my uncle, etc.  I have lots of good memories like that and I don't want to minimize those at all, but there's something special about traveling.  

I think traveling bonds you in a totally different way.  Sometimes it's the victory of working through some adverse situation as a family, like our Disney hurricane, but I think most of the time it's just extra special memory making when you experience interesting things together.  As a mom especially, I feel I'm able to participate more fully, mentally and physically, when we're away from home and I don't have to worry as much about day-to-day things like cleaning, laundry, errands, or cooking.  Traveling still involves a lot of planning and coordination, but it's a different sort of mental load and at least you can immerse yourself in the experience for longer than a few hours at a time.  Reality always awaits at the end, but the daily physical burdens feel less immediate.  And admittedly, based on our experience, it wasn't always a cure-all--taking the sibling frustrations to a new place merely changed the scenery while providing more chances for public embarrassment.  Still, most of the best memories we have and bring up often are from our trips.  Of course they're mostly Disney, probably not coincidentally since those coincided with Jacob finally being at least tolerable toward Carter when it counted.  Prior to that, it seems he blocks out things from his lacrosse trip era, probably because he feels lacrosse wronged him, and anything before that I think he was so fixated on being superior to Carter that the details blend into the background.  Anything else aside from maybe baseball trips pretty much pales in comparison to Disney anyway, and that is the standard he judges all things by.  Lucky us, right?  So, anyway, I suppose the kids' memories are a bit more limited than, say, what I might recall myself, but I think what we're doing now is trying to make up for lost time.  

But as I thought through all of this, I was mostly just surprised to realize how much more we've done with our little family and it made me re-think my childhood experience a bit.  Are we actually overdoing it?  Or did my parents under-do it?  The thing is, I know my parents thought they were doing the prudent, frugal thing.  They came from a time where you didn't do fancy family vacations, and they were very careful with their money.  It wasn't necessarily their responsibility to show us the world, and that's fine.  They did take some nicer trips as a couple to reconnect (Disney, Vegas, Atlantic City, San Francisco), which I get as well, and it reminds me we actually haven't done enough (read: any) of that.  But knowing now all that they've been able to do in retirement, I feel like the potential to do more was probably there all along.  While I don't begrudge them any of their amazing empty nester experiences--I promise, I know they earned them being wise with their money all along--I do wish that they'd maybe invested a little more of that into at least one other big family trip along the way so we could have made some additional core memories together.  I often feel like my brother and I have very little in common, and sometimes I wonder if that could have helped.  We spent a lot of time at home fighting over the TV, but I feel like a lot of our other time was either time with grandparents and relatives, John's sports (baseball, basketball, or him golfing with our parents), or just me going off with my mom.  We were always four years apart in school, which was just enough to keep us mostly separate even though we were physically in the same school for a number of years.  Maybe if we'd had something like more trips to bond over, there would be more to look back on together.  Wishful thinking, maybe, but when I see other families post epic vacation photos, I have to think their kids will have a lot to reminisce about later.  

To some degree, for a while I think Craig and I held a similar philosophy as my parents did.  When the boys were little, anything seemed exciting to them, so we focused on fun nearby places and eventually enhanced lacrosse trips.  I always tried to work in other things we could do together to make the most of the opportunity and give Carter a little reward for the long drives and countless games.  It just seemed logical and prudent to cram what we could into a trip so we didn't have to go there again separately down the road at an additional cost.  Our last-minute trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame and our stop at Howe Caverns were both part of lacrosse trips, and they worked out well.  But then I think we started relying on those trips to manufacture opportunities, and we eventually ended up with a summer with just one lacrosse trip.  We did add a couple activities to that (Lake Placid and the boat ride to Boldt Castle), but it was still pretty low-key and I came out of that summer feeling like we probably should have done more.  But before and after that, we had trips to Toronto for Raptors-related things, so I think we felt like one main trip was enough that summer because we'd already spent a lot on those weekend trips.  But when the pandemic hit right after, I felt guilty that our last "free" summer didn't feature much of a vacation.  When pandemic restrictions finally eased, we realized we couldn't take time for granted, and suddenly the kids felt a lot older.  It became clearer that our time to do things as a family was going to go fast, so we vowed to do more after that.  Disney had been the goal, but they still had a lot of restrictions so we settled on the Jersey Shore trip first.  I thought it was a good effort, but it definitely had a couple hiccups. However, as previously established, Jacob travels differently and was left unfulfilled, which was why Disney ended up being so important (and then happened again).  Thankfully we both got significant raises during the pandemic, and then we stopped having to pay private school tuition, so it's made it a bit easier to think a little bigger and not be worried about what something might cost.  I'm still not throwing them on a plane to anywhere exotic (even as I watch a lot of friends take their kids all over), but I'd like to make sure they get a feel for what's out there and feel confident to travel themselves someday.  We're still figuring out what other vacations might look like when Disney is not an option, but hopefully we can do that quickly before another summer passes us by.

Looking back, I honestly think my parents got caught up in being practical and not spoiling us, and maybe never realized the lost opportunity to do something fun and extra memorable together while we still had the chance.  I'm not saying it had to be the Caribbean or Europe, but the fact that my honeymoon was my first time on a plane since that Disney trip when I was nine feels like a lot of time to only have seen things within a reasonable car trip radius.  And even then, there were a lot of places I would have loved to see that I think we could have done frugally.  It just feels like a wasted opportunity to have done a bit more together.  Again, I don't mean for this to be a complaint--I think my parents just did what they thought was the right thing to do to keep us grounded and be careful with our savings.  

But that day a few weeks ago when I was thinking about all of this, it just hit me that after all that we and the boys have been through, it's become even more important to prioritize finding things for us to bond over.  Saving and being financially responsible is also important, and I have always wanted to follow in my parents' footsteps in that way.  That's brought on some guilt when trips or experiences have cost more than I'm comfortable with, but I realized that now that we're in a better place to make memories together as a family, perhaps it's okay to take a little financial hit to make that happen--those memories could be priceless.  We lost a lot of time to dysfunctionality and we only have a few years left to cram in what we can before Jacob is potentially off doing his own thing.  If it's now or never, I'm willing to invest a bit more in the now because we won't get this time back and I don't want to regret it.  Ever since I took that crazy trip to Arizona for the 2007 NLL championship game, I realized that I'd have missed those once-in-a-lifetime memories far more in the long run than I'd miss the $450 I paid for my plane ticket.  Yes, there has to be a balance there--you can't do it all--but that taught me a very valuable lesson that I try to keep in mind now.

This past weekend was one of those times where I previously might have hesitated to act due to cost or practicality, but in this newer era of family togetherness, we went all in.  Craig was set to call his 400th straight game on Saturday in Hamilton, ON, and then we decided to tack on a Blue Jays game in Toronto on Sunday.  Craig's parents came with us, and it really made for a great weekend together.  The boys were pumped since they've been bonding over baseball in recent months, and obviously we were all excited to share this time with Craig's parents, especially since they'd never been to the Blue Jays stadium despite being big baseball fans.  Tickets weren't cheap, obviously, and food and souvenirs have clearly been hit by inflation, but it felt like a really important weekend to just immerse ourselves in the moment and try to let the cost worries go.  I'll admit the $45 Starbucks breakfast for the boys and me gave me pause, but it was Canadian money and I soldiered on.  I know the trip meant a lot to the boys and to Craig, for different reasons, so when you have the privilege to safely ignore the number on the credit card machine, you just do it.  So we did, and I think it created lasting memories for everyone.  

Obviously one or more posts are to come on that, but leading into it, it felt important to document this realization first.  I was truly struck when I realized that my kids have likely done and seen a lot more than I did as a kid.  I feel like I had such a great upbringing, and I guess I always wanted to make sure I did the same for my kids.  But somewhere along the way, I guess we accidentally did more than I ever expected.  Sometimes I still look at friends and feel like I'm not doing enough, but truth be told it's been a pretty amazing ride--even if we unfortunately weren't able to enjoy it the way we should have due to all of our family challenges over the years.  While I truly appreciate the childhood I had and am thankful for all I was able to experience within our frugal existence, I'm grateful for the chance to take a different path with our kids.  

As a side note, I'm extra grateful that I have documented it all here.  Call me crazy--16+ years and 2,098 blog posts later, I probably am--but preserving these memories may be the best thing I've ever done, the ultimate life souvenir.  As another side note, I realized the other day that I should have suspected this tendency when my last hockey game at the old Aud (28 years ago this week!) spawned a 32-page, single-spaced "book" of my memories there.  I didn't want to forget anything then, I guess, and the same holds true now.  Life is a blur if you don't slow down and take it all in, so I've tried.  Yay for digital photos and the magic of the internet to make it all just a little easier.

So, on the subject of memories and souvenirs, I'll close this out with one of my favorite songs, aptly named "Souvenirs".  It's so true and always a good reminder how fast time flies.