Last week we got our passport applications in for the boys. A unique experience of paperwork, official documents, checks and the execution of a right-handed pledge to a post office employee in the middle of the postoffice to state that our children are, indeed, our children.
Valid for five years I wonder what their pages will be filled with. In my expired passports I thumb through the stamps from the DDR, Egypt, India, Hong Kong, Britain, an EU work permit for the Netherlands, student visas to NL and UK, many over they years to and from NL, US and the UK as well as an unused visa for Pakistan.
I have memories attached to all these stamps.
Those who know me cite my weird penchant for being able to remember fine details about a day in the past. I don’t have a photographic memory but, I do have a rich memory attached to dates. I can recall events to days decades past. It is my party trick. I admit this skill faded some as I’ve gotten older, became a parent and was more sleep deprived but, it is still somewhat there.
So, with my memories, I look to our seven and nine-year olds and wonder what they remember. I can show them photos and videos from years past and they will remember some of those events and others, nothing. Today, most of us have this odd 
arsenal of event evidence in our phones, let alone our computers. In a minute I can pull up a 1000 video snippets from the last years.
When I was kid, it took a bit of organization to find the tapes, films or slides from years past and then plug them into the appropriate mechanism to show them. We don’t have the documentation from our childhood we do have of todays events. With that information I wonder what our kids will remember.
I know I have memories that are really memories of being told about certain memories. Then these memories slowly became ‘my’ own memories but, are they? So, again, I look at our boys as we prepare for this year-long adventure in the wide world and I wonder, “what will they truly remember?”.
Part of our purpose of our journey is to impress upon them the diversity of the world around us and the exploration of new cultures in ways that would not be possible at home in Oregon.
Our boys have now folded our plans into their everyday discussions. “So, next year at Christmas time, where will we be?” or “How will we celebrate Thanksgiving when we are not in America?”.
My hope and dream is that we create a rich year full of adventures and life long memories for them to refer back to forever. My worry is that they won’t remember what we experience and it gets filed away in a dusty box. Then again, I do know my travels experiences impressed upon me urges to make various life choices that led me to go overseas again and again. I find more value in travel than in trinkets.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the comforts of a secure life; house, access to transportation, technology, clothing and the odd thing to explore but, I get more excited from the promise of a ticket to travel than I do a new gadget. I find my excitement grows when I know change, adventure and travel is coming up. Anticipation is a very good drug for me.
I have discovered my dream is to instill the hope, love and adventure of travel into our boys. I hope their memories fuel them for decades to come. We are passing on our values. So, that pledge that Kelvin and I made in the middle of that crowded post office seems even more important now. A small memory of hope and anticipation. We pledged to help them create amazing memories and a lust for life. The travel life.
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