September. The month I was dreading. And the month I didn't post anything.
This month was a different one for us. We came back to the kids' home town, rented a house, and slowed way down. Not by choice, exactly. James needed surgery, and we needed to be in one place long enough for recovery and follow-up appointments. It was the responsible, necessary, obvious thing to do.
And I hated it.
The uncomfortable truth
I spent all summer in Alaska not wanting to leave, partly because it was incredible (baby bears, midnight sun, glacier hikes with the kids), but also because I knew what was coming. A long stretch in one place. Doctor's appointments. Swimming lessons. A house with walls that don't move.
We took full advantage of the time. Got the truck fixed. Went to doctors and dentists. Signed the kids up for swimming lessons. Caught up with friends. It was all productive and good and exactly what we needed.
And I still wasn't happy about it.
Why I stopped sharing
Here's the thing I've been avoiding saying: I stopped posting because it felt weird to post about travel while living a "normal" life. Our whole identity, our brand, our community, our story, is built around movement. Around the road. Around Colletta and the adventures we have in her.
And sitting in a rented house in a suburban neighborhood, doing homework with Calvin at a kitchen table and watching Millie ride a scooter in the driveway, it didn't feel like our story. It felt like everyone else's story. The one we specifically left behind.
So I went quiet. Not dramatically. Not with an announcement. I just stopped opening the app.
What I realized
In the silence, something became clear: I'd been so focused on the travel part of our identity that I forgot the rest. We're not just a family that travels. We're a family. Period. And families have seasons where they slow down, take care of their health, do the boring-but-necessary things.
There's nothing inauthentic about that. In fact, hiding it was the inauthentic part.
I took photos of the kids all month. Millie learning to swim. Calvin at the library with a stack of books taller than his head. James recovering, slowly, with the particular stubbornness of a man who doesn't like being told to rest. They're some of my favorite photos from the entire year.
I just didn't share them.
Coming back
We're back in the Airstream now, with travel on the horizon, and I'm thrilled. The road is where we come alive, where the rhythm of our family makes the most sense. But I'm also grateful for September. For the reminder that "normal" life isn't the enemy. It's just another kind of adventure, one that requires a different kind of courage.
The courage to be boring. To be still. To let the content wait while the life happens.
I'm going to try to be better about sharing the slow parts, the stuck parts, the unglamorous parts. Because those are real too. And this account was always supposed to be about the real version.
Big things are coming. But first, thanks for being here, even when I wasn't.
