21 Days to Launch Family travel blog | being a mother and traveling as a family

My mother passed away when I was 21. She passed from a rare (essentially) incurable cancer, taking with her, a mothers love, and my entire history. As the child of immigrants I am the product of travel, and she ingrained in us the importance of overseas travel. Every since I was born my mother made sure I spend at least a month outside of the country, sometimes foregoing family trips to ship us abroad to cousins in far away places. My diary was my original family travel blog.

I learned to sew by the light of a kerosene lamp in Jamaica by an elderly aunt who could barely see but muscle memory guided her hands. I learned Karate from in England in a dojo founded by an uncle who studied martial arts in Japan. My entire childhood is weaved with these memories of foreign places and familiar people. I started traveling so young I never had the chance to develop anxiety about traveling.

I no longer have access to a woman older than me that share my blood. There is no one to impart me with the history of my people, or where on this path of life a rattlesnake lies waiting to pounce. I don’t know how we’ve soothes crying babies for generations or the song I was rocked to sleep at night with, the same as my mother or my mother before me. I feel this loss of feminine protectors at my very core. It was, in fact, the second thought that crossed my mind upon looking into the eyes of my daughter, for the first time. Now it’s entirely possible I won’t someday get cancer and leave my daughter prematurely, but the way my anxiety is set up, that’s not in my realm of possibility.

I haven’t seen any blogs about traveling in this format. The family travel blog I’m dreaming up is about, bout being a mother and traveling as a family of course. However its also about our unique travel style and how our family defines sustainability.

This group of writings is many things, but at its core, it’s a love letter to my daughter. An anecdotal herstory of our time together. Sprinkled with advice, she very well may not choose to take. It’s my life, her life, our life, spelled out in black and white. How I chose to live it. A story to rebel against.

It takes 21 days to create a habit. 21 days is such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. So I’m committing to 21 days of writing here in this space in a hope to FINALLY committing to something I’ve been putting off.

I’m giving myself 21 days to Launch this black family travel blog.