We Are Going on a Trip!

By Lisa R. Conner

Something happened today that I need to get out of my body and onto paper.

Or a screen.

Whatever.

It is still warm.

Can you feel the steam?

I don’t completely understand it yet, which is usually exactly when I need to write.

Afterward, I realized my book Casa Renae begins with a letter to my eight-year-old self.

And perhaps my next book, Love Reimagined, just did too.

Whoa.

Today I was talking to a friend about boxes.

Kinda square, right?

I love boxes.

I mean, I really love boxes.

Pretty boxes.
Storage boxes.
Little boxes with compartments.
Organizers.
Apple boxes. Be still my heart.

There is something deeply satisfying about a thing having its own home.

Recently, I received something in a ridiculously cute floral box and saved it because I thought it might inspire a future Casa Renae box.

It says BLOOM across the top in giant pink letters.

Of course I saved it.

Eight-year-old Lisa would have lost her mind over that box.

She loves boxes too.

And pens.
And stickers.
And colorful markers.
And coloring books.
And Nancy Drew books.
And stuffies.
And records.
And pen pals.

Give that kid a fresh box of markers and something with tiny compartments and apparently we are set for the afternoon.

But boxes mean something else in my life.

During cancer, I remember feeling as though all the boxes of my life came crashing down at once.

Boxes I had stacked carefully.

Boxes I had carried from place to place.

Boxes containing different versions of me.

And if you know my story, you know I have moved a lot.

A bunch.

Eight-year-old Lisa knew something about packing.

She knew something about leaving.

She knew how to figure out where we were going next.

She knew how to arrive somewhere unfamiliar and start figuring it out.

Again.

And again.

And again.

So maybe it makes perfect sense that I love boxes.

They hold things.

They organize things.

They give things a place.

They make things feel containable. Manageable. Predictable.

Huh.

There might be something there.

But somewhere in the middle of talking about boxes today, I realized something else.

We can love boxes without living out of them.

Kabam.

I don’t have to hate the boxes.

I don’t have to throw them away.

I don’t have to pretend they didn’t hold things I loved.

Boxes are useful.

Some of them are really freaking cute.

I can keep them.

I can fill them.

I can empty them.

I can admire them.

And I can leave them.

They just don’t define me.

I don’t have to live out of them anymore.

That is where eight-year-old Lisa showed up.

Not as some sad little girl sitting in a corner waiting for me to rescue her.

Huh, again.

Because the more I thought about her, the more I remembered who she actually was.

She was vibrant.

Curious.

Funny.

She loved kick the can and movies and board games.

She loved spelling bees.

Yep.

Spelling bees.

Nerd alert.

She loved dancing, acting, comedy skits, and getting on stage.

She loved community projects.

She loved talking to people and learning about different places.

She loved folklore.

She loved cooking and baking.

She had big eyes and a million questions.

Why is the sky blue, anyone?

She wanted to know everything.

She still does.

And suddenly I understood something that made me cry.

She’s the fun in me.

Oh.

There you are.

She wasn’t trying to keep me stuck.

She wasn’t the problem.

She didn’t need me to make her disappear so I could become some wiser, more evolved version of myself.

Quite the opposite.

She had simply been given a job that was much too big for an eight-year-old.

Figure out where we’re going.

Figure out what happens next.

Read the room.

Know what to do.

Make meaning.

Be ready.

Adapt.

Pack.

Go.

She got really good at it.

Maybe too good.

And today I realized:

She can retire.

Not from being eight-year-old Lisa.

From being in charge.

I could almost hear her asking me:

Where are we going?

Can I come?

Will you know how to take care of us there?

Will there be familiar things?

If I get scared, will we have to go back?

And for once, she doesn’t need the answers.

Because I do.

Or maybe I don’t.

Maybe that’s the point.

I don’t know exactly where we’re going.

I don’t know what every part of the next chapter looks like.

I don’t know what is around every corner.

And—this is new—I don’t need to.

But I know something she couldn’t possibly have known at eight years old.

I’ve got us.

Yes, you can come.

Of course you’re coming.

We’ll bring what we need.

We’ll make wherever we’re going feel like ours.

And if you get scared, you can tell me.

You don’t have to figure anything out.

You don’t have to watch the adults.

You don’t have to anticipate the next move or read the room.

You don’t have to keep one eye on the door.

You don’t have to know the way anymore.

I do.

And kiddo?

You can go play now.

Bring your pens.

Bring the markers.

Bring the stickers and the Nancy Drew books and the stuffie.

Bring a board game.

Bring the music.

Bring the whole BLOOMing box.

We’ve got room.

Just leave it to me.

I have been asking myself a question lately:

How do I become someone I desire being?

Maybe I thought becoming meant leaving old versions of myself behind.

Apparently not.

Maybe becoming isn’t about leaving ourselves behind at all.

Maybe it is about finally letting every version of us do the job she was meant to do.

And eight-year-old Lisa?

Her job was never to get us through life.

Her job was to be eight.

To play.

To wonder.

To ask too many questions.

To laugh too loudly.

To make something.

To put on a show.

To write to a pen pal.

To learn something completely useless simply because it fascinated her.

To color outside the lines.

Although, knowing her, she probably wants a fresh sheet of paper so she can do it again neatly.

We contain multitudes.

Maybe becoming means keeping what was beautiful.

The curiosity.
The humor.
The creativity.
The big eyes.
The questions.
The connection.
The wonder.

And putting down what never belonged in those little hands.

The constant preparedness.
The responsibility.
The need to know what happens next.

I don’t need eight-year-old Lisa to navigate anymore.

I want her to play.

I want her to be the kid she didn’t always get enough time to be.

And I really want to see what happens when the woman I am now takes responsibility for getting us where we’re going while that little girl gets to press her nose against the window and watch the world go by.

Maybe she’ll pick the music.

Actually, she will definitely pick the music.

She has exceptional taste in rock bands.

And she’ll probably talk the entire way.

She has a lot of questions.

I can live with that.

At the beginning of Casa Renae, I wrote a letter to my eight-year-old self.

The first words were:

You were right.

That letter looked backward.

I needed her to know that I believed her.

Maybe this is the beginning of another letter.

This one looks forward.

And it doesn’t begin with you were right.

It begins:

To my eight-year-old self, pack your bags.

We are going on a trip!

And for a little girl who spent so much of her childhood packing, those words mean something entirely different now.

We’re not packing because we have to leave.

We’re not packing because somebody else decided where we’re going.

We’re not packing because home disappeared again.

We’re packing because there is a whole world out there she hasn’t gotten to explore yet.

We’re packing because we want to go.

Because we can.

Because home isn’t something we’re desperately trying to find anymore.

We know where it is.

And this time, she doesn’t have to get us there.

She gets to come along.

She can bring the stickers.

I’ll leave the box open.

I’ve got us.

Living in curiosity,
Lisa

Lisa R. Conner is a writer, coach, REALTOR, and entrepreneur based in Alaska. She is the author of Casa Renae: Outgrowing Your Story & Coming Home to Yourself and writes Fireweed & Flannel as a place for honest reflections on reinvention, courage, identity, grief, real estate, and the wild beauty of becoming.

You can explore my candles and other offerings at LisaConnerLiving.