"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun." — Mary Poppins
“All it takes is faith and trust….and a little Pixie dust." — Peter Pan
Last week, and for the second time, I chaperoned my daughter’s musical theater troupe’s annual trip to Disneyland. 24 thirteen year olds, four chaperons, two trip leaders, two parks, close to 40 miles pounding the pavement over two days.
While exhausting yet illuminating last year, this year’s trip was surprisingly less exhausting. I’ve been thinking about why.
Could it be that I knew more of what to expect? Could it be that we dressed them in fluorescent yellow sweatshirts so we could see them a mile away? Could it be that they are older and I didn’t worry as much?
It is certainly not because we walked any less.
The more I think about it, the more I come down to two things that made this trip so different from last year:
I let myself have fun.
I let myself trust someone else.
Let’s start with fun. Fun is peppered throughout my life. I am very lucky to have wonderful friends, a loving family, and I get outside and enjoy it. Fun can look like having dinner with friends or laughing on the phone with my mom or getting tickle tortured by my daughter or skiing with friends and family. Those are all fun.
Disney was fun in a different way. It was skipping down the street. It was eating candy. It was riding rides. My younger self peeked around my highly competent, functional self and came out for a few days. She enjoyed herself. And she learned so much from the younger set.
She learned to push herself out of her comfort zone (yet again). I’m not a fan of roller coasters and last year, I happpily volunteered to stay with kids that didn’t ride them. This time around, as I saw many of the kids pushing themselves onto rides of which they were scared before, I thought, “Maybe I’ll do that too.” Supportive co-chaperones coaxed me, there was some humor, and even some handholding. Then, my daughter came off Space Mountain just as I was about to get on. She said, “you won’t like it, Mom. You’ll be scared.” And I blurted out, “I’m going to do it. Maybe I’m braver than you think I am.”
This surprised us both.
And, as you might have guessed, I loved it. I loved screaming and holding my hands in the air and the adrenaline rush and the silliness of it. It was….fun.
This is when I realized that it’s been a while since I had fun like that. And I liked it.
The more fun I had, the more curious about it I became. What else is fun? When do I have fun? Are there ways to have fun that I have been ignoring?
My daughter’s teacher infuses these trips with all sorts of lessons and teachable moments. She says things that the kids would never hear if they came from parents. But from her? They listen. They discuss. They contribute. They learn. So do I. This year, she asked them to think about the difference between fitting in and belonging. She spoke with them about exploring who you are. About being curious about what you think you know. About getting to know yourself. “Maybe you didn’t used to like strawberry jelly. Do you like it now? Let yourself find out!”
Let yourself find out.
To be encouraged to ask these questions with genuinity, curiosity, and respect by someone you trust? What a gift for these kids. What a gift for their parents.
This brings me back to trust.
I felt fortunate to trust someone one else. My daughter’s teacher and her husband who run this trip have a plan. And it’s a good plan. I can trust them. Last year, this was very hard for me. I saw it being very hard for some fellow chaperones this year. Like fun, I didn’t realize how precious a commodity this is.
As a high functioning, competent super mom who is also a recovering perfectionist, trusting other people to do things is….new. Unusual. To trust someone else to plan, to execute, to remember the details, to ensure our safety and joy? Not to have to do it all myself? A gift I didn’t know I wanted, needed, or could accept. I did accept it this time around though. And it was wonderful.
It was also a gift from the kids. They are older now. What they needed from chaperones was different this year. More guidance and support. Less direction and doing.
In the challenge and joy of those days, I got to see these kids. My daughter and my daughter’s friends and peers. They are growing. Changing. Navigating. Becoming.
That comes with a bit of loss for us adults. Yet, there was space - a lot of space - for me there. And I filled that space with something I needed: fun. joy. laughter.
Maybe I can welcome more space. More fun. More trust.
That feels exciting and a bit scary. Letting go a bit more, accepting change….it’s exciting and scary. Some moments, I want to resist. I want to go back to what it was before. But then again, maybe I am braver than I think I am.
A recovering perfectionist 🙃 – that is a work in process for so many of us. I guess We’re not all fully recovered until it’s too late, because we’ve missed the things we were unwilling to let go of. It’s hard to be in the moment when you’re always ahead of it!
arms high screaming... best visual