Make Space for Yourself to Come Alive

The reminder I brought home from an incredible trip to Venice (my first trip away from baby!)

We’re all overwhelmed, yeah? My posts last month about decision fatigue (on lunch and getting dressed) had the most engagement I’ve seen yet with this little newsletter/blog of mine, so I know I’m not alone in the overwhelm. And unless you’ve been living in a cave or somewhere similarly isolated from modern civilization, you’ve likely been hearing/reading/seeing the prompts to take a break! rest! prioritize self-care! 

And yes, we all should do that. But honestly, who can carve out the time?

It’s so easy to get bogged down in the daily grind – work, parenting, household management, sleep, repeat, and on and on and on….. And most of the time, to train or prepare someone else to do it all for you feels so insurmountable that to just stay home and do it yourself is the easier option.

But, I did it. I took a break. 

Earlier this month, I went to Venice with two of my oldest friends for 5 days and to say it was incredible is a vast understatement. I took PTO and left the baby (gah! toddler!) at home for the first time. 

This trip was an actual break from my daily life – the kind of vacation that makes it so you return home better able to manage all the things you took a break from. I was exhausted and stuck in a rut but I didn’t realize how many layers my rut had until the trip pulled me out of them. 

Italy with two best friends – obviously, I expected the trip to be wonderful. What I didn’t expect was how wonderful it would also be to return home and how beautifully those two truths can coexist. 

Dreaming

Let’s back up a bit. 

For years, really, we’ve been scheming up a reunion trip, the three of us. 

We met and became friends in 2010 in Trieste, Italy – even though we all grew up in Virginia and went to school at UVA, moving to Italy for a job teaching at an international school is what brought us together. We worked together, shared an apartment, and lived basically all of life together that year. 

Since then, we’ve lived all over the place and far away from each other, have all gotten married, and have 6 kids between us. Despite living across time zones (from Seattle to Switzerland) and thanks to the internet and WhatsApp, we’ve kept in touch over the last 13 years but before this month, the last time we were all together was for a random, very quick hello and hug ~7 years ago in a Whole Foods along I-95 in Virginia. 

Could we make a reunion trip happen? 

Last year, we finally started getting serious with our reunion scheming. But at the time, I had a fresh new babe and was the most hesitant to plan a trip away. In the early days of parenthood, I could not fathom ever wanting or needing a break. I was soaking in the new season of our family and honestly loving it.  

Months passed and I was still content at home with my little one – I didn’t want to travel without her, I didn’t need a break! I talked with so many friends about how I theoretically wanted time away but only because the world told me I should want it. I didn’t actually feel that in my gut.

But as we approached baby’s birthday, the itch started to creep in. The itch to do something just for me, to try to uncover myself and find out what it even meant to be me anymore. Was I still in there? 

Planning

Back to the continued dreaming and scheming with my friends. This wasn’t going to be just any trip away – it was one I had been subconsciously lusting after in the back of my mind for so long!  

Our original hope was to rendezvous in Trieste for a true reunion of people and places, but details didn’t work so we shifted to Venice and planned around the Venice Night Trail 16k, a run “up and down 51 bridges amidst the mystery and charm of Venice by night.”

I love to travel, I love spending time with friends, and I love running. Three things just for me. 

But was this idea too insane? Venice for a long weekend? How can I maximize time in Italy with my friends while minimizing time away from home? Is that even possible? 

I had niggling worry and anxiety about lots of little things that mostly amounted to, will my little family be ok without me? In true martyr-mom fashion, I was convinced that the answer was a resounding NO, but also part of me knew that was silly and they would be fine. I was listening to my anxiety and then recognizing it for what it was, nerves (and apprehensive excitement!) about a big, new thing. 

I leaned into the itch and got excited about planning a trip. I no longer felt my earlier hesitation to leave; I was ready. 

Venice

I left Seattle Wednesday afternoon, arrived in Venice Thursday afternoon, and stayed until an early flight home Monday morning.

We had all been to Venice before, together years ago and with others more recently, which ended up being perfect. The city was familiar enough to not feel overwhelming and we didn’t have a huge tourist agenda which allowed us to focus on our true priorities, catching up over delicious food and drink. 

We wandered along canals, took turns without direction, got lost in tiny hidden piazzas, went shopping, and paused for apertivi in the sunshine. 

We ran a race! The Venice Night Run started at 9p on Saturday and was a unique and truly charming way to see the city. 

We ate delicious food, including tiramisu once a day. And we slept long and hard each night.

We talked about marriage, parenthood, work, general adulthood, and the foundation of our friendship - that year in Trieste after college. I feel so lucky to still be friends with two women who were witnesses to that formative year of my life, for the ways their friendship continues to support and shape me as a woman, wife, and mother. I’m grateful for technology that allows us to stay connected across time zones and continents and for the ways we prioritize each other with our time, energy, and emotional resources. 

Our year in Trieste in 2010-2011 and our weekend in Venice 10 days ago feel they were separated by lifetimes and also no time at all. To fall back in step wandering quaint Italian strade, pausing for apertivo when the mood struck, and chatting about books, running, and life was a revitalizing balm. 

And then the trip ended, slowly, with staggered departures, in the same way it began. But I was not the same.

While I arrived feeling a bit anxious – still not fully convinced that it was OK for me to be away from home, and a bit wary of so much time together with friends I hadn’t seen in a while – I left feeling more full than I had imagined I could be. I was truly bolstered by the rest, nourishment (both physical and emotional), and renewed deep friendships. I felt alive and like me – a person independent from my role as a mother and responsible grown-up.

My trip was special in a lot of ways but the most important part was very simple: it was intentionally planned time away from my regular life. 

Coming home

After days of warm, bright sunshine, Seattle welcomed me home with a dreary embrace. In the way it often does here, it felt like the weather was nudging me to slowly reenter, to mindfully transition from vacation and back into my life with intention. 

Returning home was, and continues to be, an active thing to experience as much as the trip itself was. The trip brought me refreshment I didn’t know I needed with time away from the daily grind and upon returning home, big gratitude for this little life I love. 

People talk about how travel makes your world bigger and smaller at the same time and I absolutely agree. Visiting new places makes them real in a way that for me, creates a gap kind of like FOMO. For all the days I’m not traveling to this new and wonderful other place, it seems like I’m missing out on something marvelous – I know it’s out there and I’m not enjoying it in the present moment. And in that same mental space, traveling away from home clarifies all the little things that make home and the small simplicity of everyday life so sweet. Traveling helps me articulate what I value in the every day and how I want to prioritize my time and energy. 

In planning the trip, packing, and preparing to leave, I was excited to go to Italy, eat and drink delicious things, and hang with my friends. My excitement and enthusiasm were high but a touch performative. Looking back, I was more excited to brag to other people than about actually going. I’m sure that was because I was nervous to leave, uncertain that it would actually happen until I was physically on the plane and because I am an Enneagram 7 (the Enthusiast). 

I had also not fully considered my need for a complete, intentional break. I knew, theoretically, that I deserved one. I’d grown and birthed a baby and fed her with my body for over a year and hadn’t spent a single night away. I hadn’t woken up on my own, not prompted by the baby or an alarm clock, in 387 days. I didn’t realize how amplified and expanded my mental and physical load had become in the past year and how much it was weighing on me. 

And then I went to Venice with friends to rest and play and so much of it lifted. My brain cleared and I came alive. I’m sure the magic of Italy helped but I don’t want the message here to be, “You must take a trip to Italy!” (though, of course, you must). 

The message here is that prioritizing myself and things that I love, things just for me - travel, deep friendships, running, rest - helped me remember what it’s like to be me. The break from regularly scheduled programming created space for me to come alive again. 

I love my little life and all the ordinary wonder in each day. I have cultivated rhythms at home that serve and support me during the daily grind and make it possible to embrace big adventure when the opportunity arises. With this refreshed view, I am not merely struggling through to the next vacation, I am also living in the middle spaces. More contentment in the familiar, more adventure, more rest, more simple sweetness. 

Life is overwhelming so take a break, remember the things that light you up and prioritize them, rediscover who you are underneath the weight of the daily grind, and make space for yourself to come alive. 

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Hi! I’m Liz. Thanks for being here and reading my journals on the journey. If you’re new, learn a bit more about me and this space here and consider subscribing to my weeklyish posts. You can choose which types of posts to receive via email and if you read in the Substack app, you can choose to get notifications in the app instead of emails with new posts.

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