Privilege and Gratitude
I need to just take a minute and write out some thoughts I’m having tonight, from my cozy apartment bed in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland. This is our first international trip in eons, and only our second trip anywhere as a whole family since The Before Days (January 2020). I’m posting on Facebook and Instagram like crazy so our friends and family can see some of the beautiful things we’re experiencing in this semi-obscure country. (I mean, what percentage of the human population has visited this place?)
Something that has stuck out for me in the past few days of online sharing is just how many of our loved ones seem truly, genuinely happy for us to be out in the world again. We’ve gotten countless “keep sharing!” or “I love that you made your trip a reality!” type comments and not a single “must be nice.” I can’t even begin to tell you all how grateful I am to have such supportive balls of positivity in my life. I don’t know why I called you all balls. It’s a compliment, though.
Anyway, I realize it’s also really easy to roll your eyes at people’s zillions of travel photos or, even easier for me, to feel serious envy when others are doing something you want to do. I’m generally pretty good at not having those emotions, but they sneak in from time to time.
I’m also very, very aware of the insane amount of privilege it takes for us to be able to do these trips. The money, the ability to take time off work, the general health and strength of our family…we take none of this for granted. A whole lot of things had to go right in our lives to get to the point where we could pull this off.
But - here’s the but - I’m really thankful that so many of you also seem to appreciate how much work we put into lining things up to make all those “right-going things” a possibility. I mean, yes, we are very lucky to have a house in a town where people want to visit and are willing to swap homes with us. But I also spent two years hosting family after family, gathering and storing up “Guest Points” for HomeExchange.com like a bizarre squirrel. I enjoyed it, but it was legit work. And we can work from pretty much anywhere in the world (privilege), but that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t worked every single day for years and taken huge financial risks when it was sometimes really scary.
Our hard work doesn’t erase the privilege and luck we’ve had. Far from it. We never lose sight of that, because we both remember very well how it felt to have to decide between buying textbooks or eating, or crying in a doctor’s office because I couldn’t afford the co-pay to be there. We also know that there are plenty of people out there who work way harder for way longer and still can’t catch a break. Anyone who claims “all you need is drive” is an asshole who lives outside of reality. There are also plenty of people who do jack shit and seem to succeed at everything anyway. Gah! I hate that. Hopefully our mix of work and luck evens us out karmically or something?
It’s tricky to acknowledge both sides of this coin. I hope the intended message is coming through, rather than some kind of tone deaf Kardashian-style post about how “we’re all in this together but I’m in it together with you from my zillion dollar yacht.” What I really mean to say is that this wouldn’t be nearly as fun if we didn’t have enthusiastic cheerleaders egging us on. And even better, fellow globetrotters sharing their own adventures to give us more ideas! Thank you so much for keeping us going, and for giving us so many great reasons to come back home.
