By Amelia Edelman
I peered over the edge of the boat and prepared to hurl myself into the jet-black nighttime waters of the Luminous Lagoon on the coast of Jamaica. “Don’t worry,” our guide assured me, “these waters are piranha-free.” So there was that.
I’m a city kid whose swimming skills are at the dog-paddle level, and I’m not big on cavorting with creatures, certainly not the swimming kind. But I was about to take a leap of faith, literally, into the seemingly bottomless black brackish ocean, in hopes of being lit up from below by blue bioluminescent microorganisms that only show their glow when gently disturbed. I was scared, but all I could do was laugh and leap. Because any fear I felt in this moment still seemed so small compared to the fear I had just faced days earlier: I had left the country without my children.
Traveling abroad without my kids was something I had come to believe would never be possible for me, due to no roadblock other than my own anxieties. It wasn’t the travel that was the problem; it was the without my kids part. At nearly 40, I’ve been traveling the world with my two kids their entire lives. OK, I’ve been doing most things with my kids their entire lives. I had thought it made me a cool mom, a brave mom, an easygoing mom. Which, maybe it did for a while. But if I ever dared not be “mom” for a while, to just be a person and do something without them, I would lose that capacity for cool and spend my time just worrying about my kids.
This together-or-bust paralysis didn’t come from nowhere, of course. When my oldest son, Silas, was young, I was a single mom without an active co-parent. At the time, if I let myself think too hard about the alone time I wanted and deserved, the sort of alone time enjoyed by my partnered parent friends and even my divorced friends with co-parents, I would feel resentful. So, instead, I let myself normalize spending 100 percent of my free time with Silas: Together or bust. Us against the world.
I brought Silas to bars, book clubs and concerts. I brought him on work trips to Morocco, California, and Cuba. When I met my partner, a musician, we brought Silas on the tour bus. Doing everything with my kid became not just comfortable, but, to me, preferable.
This always-togetherness easily could have subsided when my partner and I got married, when my second son was born, or when my now-husband adopted Silas. It wasn’t Silas and I against the world anymore; we were a big, full family now. But old habits die hard.
Year after year, trip after trip, I found reasons to bring my kids. And, if I couldn’t bring them, I found excuses not to go. I traveled with my kids, or I didn’t travel at all.
When, finally, I was forced to acknowledge that my ongoing insistence on “together or bust” had become arbitrary at best and unhealthy at worst, I was about to go to Portugal with Silas. Now that he was a big brother, he deserved a special trip, just him and me, the O.G. travel crew.
Silas began learning Portuguese on Duolingo weeks in advance. We packed. We said a tearful goodbye to my husband and younger son at the Nashville airport.
We had a long layover in Boston before our overnight flight to Lisbon, so we spent it at the New England Aquarium. It was the perfect beginning to the perfect adventure. Or it should have been.
In the taxi back to the airport for our international flight, I felt my feet growing heavy and my throat closing up. My head pounded and a fever flooded my entire body in a span of minutes, which seemed impossible. I wanted to scream — and also to kick myself for daring to imagine that I could physically put an ocean between my baby and myself.
I sobbed and apologized to Silas and told him we had to go home to his little brother. I promised I would take them both to Portugal together someday. Silas was flexible and understanding while his mother was having a panic attack.
I actually (perhaps in tandem with said panic attack) had COVID. Silas and I both tested positive that same day. It was such an immediate and convenient excuse to cancel the trip that I remember looking down at my body in awe, like, Did you just manifest this??
I realized then that something had to change — and that something was me. I had spent my life ensuring that my kids got to see and experience and learn from the wide and diverse world via travel. I was proud of our adventures, and proud of the curiosity and independence I taught them. But what on earth was I teaching Silas by squashing his special trip (a trip for which he had learned Portuguese!)? And all because I was so paralyzed by the concept of traveling with only one of my two children that I somehow…gave myself COVID? Enough was enough.
As soon as I could, I booked an international trip — with neither of my children. I was terrified. I had heard amazing things about Excellence Oyster Bay, a hotel nestled among mangroves on a peninsula near Montego Bay in Jamaica. If I was going to be spending sleepless nights stressing about being separated from my kids, I might as well do it with a soundtrack of reggae and lapping waves and a world-class spa nearby, right?
I was even anxious while packing. Every item I dropped into my suitcase was a marker of upcoming time spent an ocean away from my sons. What would happen to my kids while I was away? What would happen to me?
My fear was rooted in so many things: The terrors of motherhood in America. The even worse terrors of gun violence in America. My memory of saying goodbye to my own father as a kid, not knowing he would die before I ever got to see him again. But I had to rip off the Band-Aid. How could I possibly teach my kids courage and independence when I was terrified of doing anything without them?
The change, once I landed in Montego Bay, wasn’t exactly immediate. But it was surprisingly fast. I certainly spent the first night sleepless, listening to the ocean and wondering what on earth my kids were feeling about being in a different country from their mother. But when they cheerfully Facetimed at breakfast, it was clear they weren’t giving it much thought. So I started giving it less thought, too. And thanks to that ocean and those mangroves, I began to.
Without work, chores, or kids, I spent the sunny Jamaican days biking around the peninsula, spotting birds, eating an entire lobster by myself, and watching the sun set over the beach. I found myself doing things that would have made me uncomfortable at home — singing karaoke in front of strangers, sinking myself in an icy cold plunge pool. And, then, hopping a boat in the middle of the night and preparing to jump into the black bioluminescent lagoon.
As my city-kid, barely-a-swimmer self leapt, submerged, and resurfaced, I was slowly covered in neon blue, radiant micro-organisms. I reached up to the night sky and watched the bioluminescence drip down my arm from my fingertips. These bright tiny creatures looked exactly like the stars.
I met a new person at Oyster Bay — well, a new-old person. I met the version of me who is not 100 percent mom. And it turns out, she’s fearless. Even since coming home and jumping back into the chaos of daycare dropoffs and Tae Kwon Do shuttling, I’ve been able to turn to her for advice. I think my kids like her too.
I know that when my sons are grown and moving away I’ll be a total mess. But now I know I’ll be able to handle it. Like little Silas at the airport, I’ll cry as much as I need, and then dry my tears and muster some excitement for the next adventure. I already know how I’m going to celebrate empty nesting: with a trip to Jamaica.
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