Everyone is in Europe, Except Me + my hatred of FOMO

Photo by my dear friend Britt, in Grasmere, England, 2007

Everyone is in Europe except me.

And by everyone, I mean that Hey Natalie Jean (whose book is fantastic, by the way) and SaraBoulter are. They’re posting lovely images of far off places and art and food and magic and adventure.

Sometimes I spend my few spare moments while the kids are napping catching up on some much needed sleep. Sometimes I tidy up or sneak in a workout. And sometimes, I numbingly sulk because I am here and everyone else is… not. The whole world is amazing and I have wanderlust and I lack the ability to always be adventuring. By choice, of course, because I could just up and leave, but I also love being here.

I love hiking in the mountains with my kids and my sisters. I love making a home out of this house and dreaming up all the renovations that will probably never happen. I love watching my son wait outside for our neighbor to get home so he can play. I love quiet moments of watching Big Hero 6 or Wall-E for the illionth time. I love making pancakes or waffles for breakfast like a short order chef. I love waking up and thinking, “what should we do today?” or “where should we go?” I love my son telling me “Wednesdays are for grandma’s house” with the most confident tone as if that’s a scheduled thing that we do every week. I love living within thirty minutes of every member of my family and seeing them at Sunday dinner and being able to shop or chat or hang out with them.

I know my life won’t be like this forever, so I try to soak it all in while I can.

But Europe, right? 

On FOMO

In other news, my game face could use some work.

“FOMO” is something the cool kids say. It stands for “Fear Of Missing Out” and is the biggest crock of shit to ever be acronymed.

I’m all for “Carpe Diem” and seizing the day, but doing something because you’re scared of not doing it seems to be a pretty stupid idea to me. For starters, it encourages a drive motivated by fear, and fear is an ugly motivator anyways, and in my case, a precursor to anxiety. And then there’s the focus on what’s lacking, things that we’re missing instead of things that we have. I’m all for saying “yes” as often as possible, but being scared of feeling like I’m less because I don’t have something? No thanks, I’ll pass.

So buckle up kids because I am waging my own personal vendetta against FOMO. My cool points are suffering, but I think I might end up better for it.

We shall see.