What I Want to Pass On

What am I passing onto my children? I’m hoping I’m passing on what has been taught to me as a child. I love to share my experiences, to be the example of life lessons I learned at a young age, that have allowed me to go for big dreams, understand the art of perseverance, and most of all, have the guts to pull every ounce of joy and laughter out of every situation. I feel sad knowing not everyone loves life and makes the most of it, and though I can’t change everyone’s perspective, if one person lives a bigger more fulfilling life because I’ve passed on what my parents taught me, I’ll feel I made a difference.

How would you feel and act if you were taking your family on vacation and your car broke down? I remember multiple instances of this happening as a child (I don’t think my parents bought cars UNTIL they had 100,000 miles on them). I’m sure my parents were stressed, financially strapped, with 2 small children broken down on the side of the road. Do you know what I remember? Fun. The adventure. Fixing the car on the side of the road, most likely having a picnic at the same time, and then continuing on towards our vacation. As an older preteen, I remember another time we broke down, laughing as we all attempted to push the car while my dad steered it. A third time I remember my dad taking another car and gently “bumping” the back of the broken down one as my sister or I would steer (well, this must have happened multiple times because I think both my sister and I had the opportunity to do this more than once). I remember when I met my husband, he told me it’s not normal for people to laugh and think it’s funny when you break down. I said, “Why not? What’s the point in getting angry and mad?” I never saw my dad get mad or upset.

It’s not that things didn’t go wrong growing up, it’s not that we grew up with extra money lying around (in fact, my mom just reminded me she and my dad would scrape the house for pennies just to have enough to take our family for a steak dinner at Ponderosa… we were never allowed to order anything besides water to drink, but can I tell you those Ponderosa trips were highlights in my memories?).

I now sit here on the balcony of our family owned beach house, feeling slightly guilty, but then realizing how we got here. First of all, we had to overcome A LOT of obstacles to get this house, obstacles that made it seem impossible and that many people would have given up when up against. We also were told you should never go into business with family and that it was a big risk (we definitely weren’t able to pay with cash like most people that buy beach houses, haha). As I feel a little guilty realizing how blessed I am, I also have to remind myself you don’t need money and a fancy beach house to have an amazing life and appreciate everything. In fact, when we first started going to the shore, my mom and her sister’s would come together to afford a teeny, tiny, 1-2 bedroom home (I’m talking teeny tiny) with 1 bathroom, and we would fit multiple families in it, with multiple kids, some of us sleeping in the van in the driveway, the rest of us on the floor. Those were some of the best times. We couldn’t even afford to rent a beach house. But man, did my family have fun.

My parents taught me to love life while going for all those wild and crazy dreams that didn’t seem like they should be attainable. So many times I would have given up on something if it weren’t for my mom demonstrating you can ALWAYS find a way (I honestly shouldn’t have even been able to apply for Physical Therapy grad school, but because of her, I did). I shouldn’t have been able to be part of a division I collegiate gymnastics team (because I’m sure my parents couldn’t afford to pay for those practices all those years and I wanted to quit many times due to fears). Yet, my parents found a way to help at the gym, help at competitions, remind me it was okay to quit, but not if I was quitting because of fear.

I’ve had enough deaths among my family and friends, enough tragedy that maybe I should be negative and sad about life. I remember one year I lost 6 people in less than a few months span. But my parents and family taught me to laugh after funerals, to embrace the stories from the past, to grieve but realize life still needs to be fully lived. I remember when my cousin died, the first time I cried heavily in front of people (he was only in 6th grade, this wasn’t supposed to happen, I was playing SIMS with him the night before). Is there anything more tragic than the loss of a child? Could my family go on after this? I also remember during that intense amount of pain, as we pulled into the cemetery, my aunt coming over laughing. Laughing! I couldn’t believe she could still laugh! She was laughing at the fact that there just happened to be two funerals going on, and that half of the crowd there for my cousin was going to the wrong funeral, then quickly running up the hill to go to the correct funeral. She laughed at the fact that Chad was always a trickster and was probably looking down at this confusion with a smirk. I quickly learned that in immense pain, there can still be laughter, we can still see the humor and joys in life. I learned that even in pain, our family would be okay.

So now I’m at my family owned beach vacation rental property, and my kids began to complain because the pool and beaches are closed. After giving them a lesson of gratitude and realizing most people don’t have the option of running away to a beach house, my parents then gave them one of the lessons they taught me my entire life. They came home with a ridiculously large above-ground pool to put in our driveway (it looks totally absurd and I’m sure against the HOA rules). Who does that?! My parents. They don’t take life’s obstacles as a stopping point. They find obstacles as an excuse to get creative, have even more fun, and find a way to enjoy the journey in a unique way. I didn’t want to post about this because I could see people saying, “Oh, it’s easy for you to say. You have good jobs. You have a beach house. Not all of us have the money to go out and buy an above ground pool.”

My response would be this: this was still the life I lived when my parents were scraping pennies. When we didn’t have money, we still made the most of every situation. It’s not about the beach house. It’s not about the pool. It’s about the times we couldn’t afford vacation, but had an old pop-up camper and made the most fun vacations ever (even when our camper tipped over while we were sleeping). It’s about feeling so grateful on the occasional trip to Ponderosa when we couldn’t afford soda’s and had to search for the cheaper items on the menu. Those times were just as amazing and fun as our times now. And I have no doubt the reason we are where we are right now are because of these lessons that leveled up my life over time, the not giving up, the not letting obstacles stop me, the ability to search for the joy in the pain.

I hope I am passing that onto my kids.