Africa

For many years I have had something of a tick list of the things I would like to do; a few items (listed in order of sentence length):

Have a cat
Live by myself
Vacation on a Carribean Island
Visit Europe - or even just parts of it
Own a "haunted" hotel or restaurant or both
Swim with sharks, preferrably on the Great Barrier Reef
Go on a safari and stand with both feet firmly planted on Kilimanjaro

There are more, but this is a pretty good sample. Most of these (if you can't tell) are born of my childhood... I watched a lot of Jaques Cousteau and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I've done a lot of the items on my wish list. These are definitely blessings counted, and memories that - barring Alzheimers - will not fade or die. They are not only a part of my history, but many of them have been defining elements of who I am.

I had my daughter last year. When I got pregnant I realised, then and there, that for the most part, my rate of "completed" tick marks on my list was bound to diminish. But that's ok... being a mom - a great mom as a matter of fact - has also been a big ticket item on my list for quite a while too.

I do, however, have one minor regret... Africa. Yes, I know I could wait until my daughter is older and wants to do something on her own for a month or so... and, yes, I have considered the other option of taking her with me, when she's older... but the problem with these is that I will be older too. My imagined Africa is a young woman's Africa... full of adventure and day long hikes and all of the wilderness a wild young heart could desire.

These days, I consider redefining my Africa... making it a Miss Marple Africa... or even a shared Africa, where mother and daughter experience the same place from different points of view.

Still... my selfish heart (the heart that had me put off motherhood until my mid-30's) aches for my young woman's Africa.

My daughter will know this... not the depth of the regret, but the fact that it is there. Not because I plan on telling her, but because I know that she and I will have the kind of relationship in which she'll know my heart... because I will not lie to her, or hide my heart from her. And perhaps, if I'm lucky, she'll have an Africa of her own that she will be willing to share with me.