Childfree Series: Live Your Life!

Welcome to a series about the most controversial subject in my life: our decision to be childfree. This series should end up as 3 posts over the next few months, but I could talk about this forever, so we will see! I tried to wait to write these posts until I would be too old to have children, but I can't wait 15 more years to talk about this, I'll go crazy. You might be thinking, "This is soooooo not what I thought Swags' blog was about!" But really, Volleyball = Travel for us because we are childfree!

I always thought that being a Christian would be the most controversial thing about me, but as it turns out, it doesn't bother nearly as many people as when I say, "I'm not having kids." Whether you are a man or a woman who wants children, who doesn't want children, or who is still undecided, this series is about a lot more than just babies. It's about life, death, marriage, singleness, and for anyone who cares about what they want their life to look like, both right now and in the ever-distant future. Et alors...

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Always smug.

I believe every new day is a bonus.

With that said, I never expected to live this long.

Yes, it's true: I'm only 29 years old. But my perception of life and time was radically altered at 16, when my best friend was killed in a car accident.

I didn't become a morbid, death-obsessed life-hater. Nor did I become greedy, thinking I deserved to live to be 102.

I have goals and dreams - maybe you could even call this my "bucket list" - just like a lot of other people. But unlike a lot of other people, my "things to do" come with a clause.

If given the time, I will experience [insert anything here]. If I don't get around to doing something or going somewhere, that's okay, too.

I hate hate HATE hearing someone assert, "I have to go to [insert place] before I die," or the worst, "If I don't [insert verb] before I die, I will have never lived!"

My best friend, Kristie Priano,
a few months before she died.

How dare we assume that we deserve to be alive, that our allotted time on earth has anything to do with who we are, or what our schedule looks like?! Many see their lives, their times on earth, as something they should have, something they've somehow earned by being born, a kind of "right" to live long and prosper. But instead of believing everyone should live to be 102, we should wake up everyday, grateful to be 85, 55, 25, or even just 15 years old.

If you've experienced the death of a young person, you hopefully get this. "Their life was cut short," everyone said. Unfortunately for our finite thinking, that's simply not true. Their life was all of the life they were meant to live. This can be very hard and uncomfortable to accept, and you may disagree with me. But that doesn't change the fact that the person is, indeed, not physically with us anymore.

Whether you are religious or not, it's irrelevant. We will all die. Some sooner than others. The longer you get, the better you should make it. For some people, that means having children. For others, it means not having children.

My decision not to have children is firmly rooted in my worldview of life and death. I have thousands of other reasons (don't even get me started on the idea of pregnancy), then add in my husband's even more reasons for a really wild number that's a waste of time to count that high.

I'm not trying to convince you to not have kids.

I just want 2 things. I want you to really think about it beforehand because it will change your life forever - sometimes for the best, sometimes not so much for the best. And I want everyone to laisse tomber, with me and with everybody else. It's nobody's business but your own.

The parent-to-child relationship is not one I will pretend to understand through experience, but what I know is from observation. A lot of observation. I feel like I've been spying on families for 29 years, taking notes on these most intense relationships humans can have. I've seen a lot of love, a lot of pain, and a lot of emotions, in general.

Thankful for my parents and sister, who have always given us 100% of their support.

I don't think any parent will argue with me the fact that "parenting is a full-time job." I've mostly heard that quoted by parents, then quickly followed up with, "but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world." I am sincerely very happy for you. You've chosen your path, you are happy with your choice, and you have all the love in the world for your child(ren). And I agree, parenting is an all-consuming lifestyle.

Travel with me on the "full-time job" perspective of parenting for a minute. If something is a full-time job, it takes on a role of a career in our lives. Volunteering at a homeless shelter can become like a full-time job and career, just as much as what we would consider a "real job" with pay. Parenting is a sort of surrogate career add-on to whatever else someone already does.

I have been told or thought at some point in my life that I would make a great: surgeon, lawyer, engineer, artist, psychologist, sniper, architect, hotel manager, journalist, advertiser, President of the United States, missionary, athletic trainer, wedding planner, computer tech, diplomat, actress, novelist, and P.E. teacher, to name a few, and some I even tried out for some time. I was blessed with a lot of motivation in school and I know I could have trained for tons of different careers. We all know that we can't take every life path. Just like doors and windows don't always open or present themselves. We are the product of our choices, which are the reactions to our circumstances. What have I ended up as? A volleyball player and coach, moonlighting as an English tutor, who loves writing and traveling.

I also seriously considered a career in pop music.

I do not choose the career path of motherhood. It's not for me. I would choose nearly every single one of the aforementioned careers over motherhood even now. I would rather go back to school for 10 years and become a doctor instead of growing a child inside of me for 9 months to become a mother. I would rather raise the money and support to become a missionary in the African jungle with no running water or electricity for the rest of my life instead of trying to keep a new human happy and alive everyday for 18 years.

Me being a missionary. Bless you, and you, and even you!

No, this is not just because that imaginary biological clock has not started ticking. If you want to insist the clock is real, then realize that I didn't get one embedded in me.

If you want (or need) someone to blame, blame Barbie. She had awesome careers and great friends (Hey, Ken) and family (Skipper was the coolest!), but never became a mother (at least as far as I know). Her physical image may not be something to aspire to, but her lifestyle image sure left an impression on me!

I chose the career on the far left (just change out the soccer ball for a volleyball).

(For a more realistic role model than a Barbie doll, see what these successful women have to say about their decisions about children here.)

Think what you want about my character, personality, and decisions. I'm outrageously and annoyingly happy more often than not. My life is AMAZING, and better than anything I could have dreamed up 20 years ago. Teenagers ask me if I'm on drugs, I'm so happy. My coworkers say I'm like "a wrecking ball of sunshine," and "the only person who really loves her job."

Just know this: my husband and I know ourselves and each other best. We don't want children for way more reasons than anyone needs.

We believe that if you don't have multiple excellent reasons to have kids, you shouldn't have them at all.

Blakers is almost 2 already!

Will I miss out on motherhood and the love of my own child? Yes, and I'm okay with that. I have children and future-children all over my life through friends and family. "Phase: Aunt Swags" is just getting started.

But the path I've chosen has things mothers will miss out on (if you can't imagine what those things could possibly be, read the rest of my blog to see what my childfree life is like) (spoiler alert: it's rad). I have more love and happiness in my life than I know what to do with, so don't worry about me. We all have to pick and choose, and pray we can be happy with the final version of ourselves, whenever our time draws to a close.


Next up in the series: Real quotes from real people when they hear I don't want kids. You've either heard these before, or said them yourself!

P.S. If you hate-mail comment me below, you'll probably get included in the next post. Yay!

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Monthly Musings with Marc - March

Athens' Dirty Secret

First thing I did when I got home from Athens was watch Disney's HERCULES. Tomorrow, I will likely watch TROY or ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

I needed to put Athens back on the pedestal in my mind because what I saw the last three days made me sad.

Don't get me wrong, Athens is a great tourist city. Incredible food, low prices, and historical sights - a tourist's dream, as long as they don't peek around the curtain.

Anyone who knows me well knows my obsession with ancient history. I read books, watch TV shows, and play video games based on ancient Roman and Greek times. Military strategies from those times are still studied today. Athens is the city that bore democracy and great minds like Socrates and Pluto. I have wanted to visit the land of mythology since I was a kid.

And now Athens will always be a land of myth to me. It is no longer what it was. Not even close.

When I travel to cities, I like to see where and how the locals live, to take a look at what is being hidden. I walk down side streets, hop on local buses going in all directions, and try to use Airbnb to stay with a local. In most cities I have visited, these explorations have led to hidden gems like cool antique stores, great cafes, or forgotten churches. In Athens, all I found was piles of trash, ugly grafitti, and decaying buildings. These were not things I was going to take pictures of.

Greece is known to be struggling financially and jobs are supposedly hard to come by. Then why have they spent 35 million euros, and planning on spending another 70 million, on restoring the Acropolis? That's a lot of money for a tourist attraction that already attracts millions of tourists per year to its hill, even in its unfinished state. What about creating some clean-up projects in the areas where locals live in squalor? Why not look to clean the streets, rebuild livable areas, or improve transportation? Use that money to strengthen what could be a foundation. Instead they are allowing the city itself to crumble behind the scenes.

Like I said, Athens is a great tourist city. Visit for a day or two, and then go island-hopping. Eat the gyros, olives, and baklava, visit the old Panathenaic Olympic stadium, and I suggest climbing up Filopappou Hill to get a great view of the Acropolis. From here you will get a great view into the past, a view into what Athens was. But when you come off of that hill, don't look too hard, or you will be greeted by what Athens is, something far from the myth.

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My Morocco, Part 3: Places & Plates

I could talk about Morocco forever, but I'm going to control myself and make this blog my last entry. I was able to enjoy Casablanca, Fez, and Rabat during my four days there.

Are you ready for all of the photos?!

Casablanca

You already know how I feel about the nightlife scene in Casa. We spent a lot of time walking through the Habous market area, both during the day and evening, and it always smelled like a wonderful mix of barbecue, fruits, spices, olives, and animals. John knew all the foods for me to try: cactus fruit, walnuts, sugar cane juice, snails with their faces, avocados without seeds, nougat, and flavored chick peas.

At night, we went back to the Habous and had incredibly tasty dromedary "burgers." A lot of food is served family-style, so these burgers were really two huge plates of meat cut into strips, ready to be shared by our party of five. The burger meat comes with huge bread rolls to be torn apart and used to pick up the meat, a plate of tomatoes and onions, and bowls of classic Moroccan seasonings of sea salt, red pepper, and cumin.

On another day, we ate at the fish market, and had lemon drenched oysters, octopus, bass, and another delicious fish with excellent teeth. That same evening, we ate at the fishing port at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that only has two items on the menu: fish soup and a shrimp omelette.

I don't know very much besides this about what I ate. I just kept saying, "Yes," and "Okay," and everything tasted great. I don't really consider myself to have a "strong stomach," but Moroccan food and I thankfully agreed the entire time.

We ate at two other impressive places: Rick's Cafe and Cafe Maure. You may recall Rick's Cafe as "the place to be" in the classic film Casablanca. John had created a party of 8 between groups of friends, and the waiters all knew who "Monsieur Glass" was the whole night because they put us upstairs in the private dining room! The food was very good, indeed, and the piano tune of "As Time Goes By" was played quite often.

Cafe Maure is THE brunch place in Casablanca. It cost a total of 15 euros for an entire entourage of breads, pancakes, crepes, sauces, fruits, and vegetables...that fed both of us to the point where there was still food leftover. Definitely the best affordable brunch I've ever had; the best, but most expensive, brunch still goes to Angelina's.

I only took a few food pictures. Most of the time, we were in groups of people, and I didn't bring my iPhone because I didn't want to be distracted from the present. It was a really fun and authentic way to enjoy my experience in Casablanca even more by basically hanging out in John's life for a weekend.

Fez

I will never forget what I read on somebody's blog before I left: "Old Fez is a bowl."

Words to live by. Also, don't go to Fez on a Friday, unless you are like me and enjoy the emptiness of closed souks and didn't need to go to the tanneries.

But the Fez bowl: I knew if I was going downhill, I was still working my way to the center. As soon as I turned uphill, I was making my way out of the medina. I was lost most of the time, but I at least knew which direction I was heading! It also helps a lot to look up and catch signs that direct you to landmarks like the blue gate, some squares, museums, and so forth.

You know those plastic maze games with the little silver ball that you have to roll around walls to try to get to the end of the maze?

That's exactly how I felt in Fez. Except instead of seeing the maze as a whole, I was the little silver ball, with the walls of the maze stretching high above me. If the Fez medina wasn't a bowl, I might still be lost in there somewhere.

Cafe Clock was my savior, giving me time to relax on the riad rooftop terrace, soaking in the beautiful views, and enjoying the craziest tapas plate I've ever tried (and finished) and some incredible chocolate cheesecake. They also offer all kinds of cool cooking and cultural classes in both Fez and Marrakech, so check out their website in advance.

Rabat

The only thing to say is that Rabat was my favorite place in Morocco. I could have wandered the bright blue and white village above the sea for days. Every turned corner was another beautiful sight. Take the photo tour!

I'm very thankful that Morocco was my first African destination. I know people consider Morocco to be much more European than African. All I have to say to that is: tant mieux. It worked in my favor.

For the complete "My Morocco" series...
Visit Morocco! (Under Certain Conditions)
Part 1: Les Petits Taxis
Part 2: Breaking Beats

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Fly Me To Portugal, Please

After we got our visa situations squared away, this summer has blown wide open.

I have been able to secure excellent work tutoring English through mid-June, making the prospects of adventures even more realistic and wonderful.

My contract with my club finishes May 15. May 16, we go to a wedding. May 17, I fly to Lisbon.

Remember that Iberia Airlines debacle over Christmas?

For overbooking our flights in December, they rewarded us with vouchers. It was quite satisfying to call Iberia Airlines this week and "pay" for my round trip to Lisbon with their money.

I'm thrilled to report that I'll be in Portugal for a solid two weeks, and I plan to absorb a lot of sunshine and seafood.

If you can't join me on the beach, I hope you'll at least stick around to see how it all goes down on the blog!
 

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My Morocco, Part 2: Breaking Beats

I think I've "gone clubbing" four times in my entire life. I do it my own way, dressed for comfort and ready to dance (read: sweat). I've had a mixture of experiences, none of which have been overwhelming epic in order to convince me that a "discotheque" is totally my scene.

That is - until La Corniche.

The biggest determining factor on whether a night out will be awesome or not is the group of people. That said, I don't know if I'll ever be able to recapture just how much fun we had at B-Rock and Bao that night. We were 3 American extras, crashing the Casablanca CrossFit party because John had taken the liberty to just keep inviting random people.

Ready to crash any wedding, anywhere.

Every time I've crashed a party, it's been rad. Once, I even crashed a wedding (thanks, Jenn).

B-Rock had a live band. A live band that played only songs I knew, everything from Elvis Presley to Pharrell Williams, and from I Love Rock n' Roll to Uptown Funk. But the music wasn't even the best part. People were dancing to dance.

They were moving their bodies to the beats and having fun with their friends. They were laughing while singing the words they knew to each other and letting the music lead them around the floor. All the while enjoying their alcohol and cigarettes (oh, hello, Morocco, and no laws against smoking inside public establishments!). If someone was there with their significant other, they danced close together. That was it. Nobody was gross, nobody was creepy, and nobody was out of control.

The best way I can sum it up for you is that is was fun and lighthearted like Taylor Swift's Shake It Off music video under a haze of cigarette smoke.

After our fun moments at B-Rock, we walked down the street to Bao. Talk about an experience that can never be repeated. This was a "real" African club: African rap music so loud we couldn't hear each other shouting, out of this world dance moves, and I was the only blonde person in the entire building.

It was the most deafening place I've ever been. I could feel the music pounding through my feet up to my rib cage. Real dancers kept crazy rhythms that I will never experience in my own body.

And then it happened.

A circle began to form around two guys. The music got even louder as we drew closer to see what was going on.

"OMG, a dance-off?!?!" I shrieked excitedly.

The first guy started his insane footwork. He did some okay "warm-up moves" (I've seen So You Think You Can Dance, I know what I'm talking about), and motioned to the other dude: "Your turn."

This dude didn't waste any time on courtesies. He made one quick step, then flipped onto his hands, and proceeded to (this is where my dance knowledge ends) bounce in a circle on his hands until he began spinning on his shoulders.

This dance-off was now a breakdance-off.

Thank goodness the music was so loud that nobody could hear my white girl screaming. I was freaking out in the best possible way - I could not believe that I was seeing this impromptu dance battle with my own eyes, just 5 feet away from me!!!

The battle kept going a few more rounds, but the first guy was way out of his pop-lock-and-drop-it wheelhouse as the second dude kept stepping up with even crazier feats on his hands and head. Yes. It was like whatever dance movie you are thinking about right now (I felt Stomp the Yard, personally).

I hope nothing ever beats my night out in Casablanca. I definitely won't be out trying to best it anytime soon! But I'm so thankful for such a fun and different experience that I can smile and talk about forever: the music, the dancing, and the insanity of it all!

For the complete "My Morocco" series...
Visit Morocco! (Under Certain Conditions)
Part 1: Les Petits Taxis
Part 3: Places & Plates

Continue »