Family Gap Year Goals: Midpoint Reflection
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller
The most important thing about a gap year might be the “stepping back” to meaningfully process and reflect on life. Taking a step back from our entrenched routines gives us space to make sense of personal challenges and growth areas. In this way hopefully we can become more grounded and happy people. This midpoint reflection on our family gap year goals, and the “Hello Gap Year” website as a whole, has made us step back and talk more deeply about what our recent experiences have meant to us.
We’ve had long conversations about how things are going. This includes perceived successes and what we might want to change heading into the second part of our gap year. Here’s a summary of things have gone with a focus the gap year goals we had previously defined.
Developing skills and learning new things (Spanish, agriculture, website building)
What’s the difference between developing new skills and learning new things? There’s no doubt we’ve learned a lot. We learned a lot about how to navigate life in new cities and how some locals do it. We learned how modern governments have shaped the places we’ve traveled. A lot of history. And so much more. But when it comes to three key skills we had zoomed in on, we hope to develop these to the point that we’ll be able to put them to continuous use in the future. They require more practice and focus.
Spanish
Classes in Buenos Aires and Cusco were helpful. More importantly I’ve gotten in some practice with locals. We speak a lot of English within the family but have ramped up the amount of Spanish we use. There’s always more I could do but I think I get a good grade in this area. Communication is still hard work. But I’m more equipped and motivated to communicate in Spanish with family in Colombia (my main reason for learning).
I also think Johana and I have done a pretty good job exposing our daughter Vienna to more Spanish. Having spent her first 2.5 years in the U.S. she is in a “foreign language” context as we travel. But the fact that she’s enjoyed playtime with kids in each country where we’ve traveled is no small thing. She has the words and confidence to start conversations in Spanish with local kids so they can play together. We’ve read and spoken more with her in Spanish and she often defaults to Spanish when she starts speaking. We’re now back for another stretch at the farm in Colombia where we’ll both get plenty of practice in. This is all encouraging and I’m proud of our efforts as a family!
Moving forward: I’d like to get in additional listening practice using online tools. Listening comprehension is where I struggle the most. I also now have a workbook from classes in Cusco that I can put to use. And of course, continue chatting in Spanish with everyone I can. For Vienna we should be intentional about exposing her to new words and phrases.
Agriculture
At the farm where Johana spent much of her childhood I’m still somewhat more of a “visitor” than her. I don’t mind much but still I want to help as a family member. So when we spent a month there early in our gap year I dug into helping with some farm projects. This included removing non-coffee plants from around the coffee to eliminate competition and clear the earth for natural fertilizer. It was hard and repetitive work. You might think I couldn’t learn much from one repetitive task but I find that you can clear your head doing something somewhat mindless. This makes mental space available to think more deeply and develop questions about the work. It was just one opportunity to embrace our goal of learning about farming but it was a good start and now we’re back at the farm for another stretch!
For Johana it’s harder to get involved in projects for the sake of learning on this particular farm. In reality this is not a “business” farm. There are things growing, most notably the coffee, but not enough to require daily tasks from the family. Sometimes a neighbor will help out or have their cows or horses graze the land, which takes care of the mowing. But for Johana, going to the farm (where she in many ways grew up) translates more to catching up with family and helping around the house. These aren’t bad things. They just make it a little harder to use this farm as base for learning.
Moving forward: Heading into the second half of our gap year we want to prioritize agriculture a little more. We’re looking into WWOOFing in Germany. Our ambitions are limited, for example we’d like to include more homegrown foods in our diets, so whatever we can do to learn more will help.
Websites
Having decided to document our experience with a WordPress blog, it followed that we could use that as a way to develop some basic website building skills. Johana has taken the lead so that we’ve been able to capture a lot of the key phases of our gap year. We’ve troubleshooted a few tech issues together and so we both feel at least somewhat competent when it comes to creating a WordPress site. At the very least we feel pretty good when it comes to creating new posts.
Sometimes I get frustrated with the tech but I love that we’ve both learned a lot. It’s also really fun to see our experiences reflected back to us in digital form. And perhaps most important, as stated above, working on posts has forced us to reflect on all of our experiences more meaningfully.
Moving forward: Keep going with the posts. Maybe watch a few tutorials to up our WordPress game just a little more.
Pursuing creative interests
I’ve spent a little more time creating music and took a few piano lessons in Cuba. These have been wonderful experiences. I had envisioned music as a kind of “job” where I dedicate several hours per day composing and practicing. I’ve only intermittently kept up this kind of routine. Still, one way or another I’ve recorded a lot of new ideas and there’s a lot of groundwork for compositions.
We both enjoy photography and try to get creative with it, but this didn’t even come up in conversation as a creative outlet for us. I suspect this is because photography is now something that’s tied to our phones and feels less mindful. Nor did we discuss this blog as a creative outlet, no doubt because we’re thinking of it more as a tool. And yet we’ve both found a lot of enjoyment in creating posts. I’ve also found myself starting to work on short stories after many years, which I’ve had a lot of fun with.
Moving forward: Continue to incorporate music making into every day. Perhaps more clearly define what it is that I’m hoping to achieve. Continue with photography and the website and (hopefully) give more thought to some of those short stories.
Growing as a family
This has become the centerpiece of our gap year. As with any parents, we’re learning as we go. But we have all of this wonderful time carved out to enjoy together as a whole family or one-to-one. We realize this is a great privilege that many families do not have access to, and which may no longer be possible for us when we return to work.
As we mentioned in our original goals post, we found it a bit difficult to arrive at the end of a long work day and finally have some time together, only to find that these hours were when we felt the most exhausted or perhaps still distracted by work projects. So we consider it a great privilege to have this time, at least for a year or two, where we can be there for each other in our most energetic moments (and less energetic too of course).
In Latin America we’ve had a chance to spend extended time with Johana’s family. In a regular year we make one short visit, which can feel rushed and packed with activities. This year we’ve had more quality time to strengthen relationships. As an immigrant to the US, this time is particularly important for Johana. Also it helps Vienna to connect with her broader family, and to create a stronger sense of identity while understanding her origins.
I’ve liked having the chance to get to know Johana’s family better in Colombia. As for my family in the US, it’s hard now to have an even longer stretch of time between (already too few) visits. Happily, we have a trip planned in August!
Moving forward: Help each other make the most of our gap year. Continue learning and growing together as a family.
Immersing ourselves in new cultures
We’re good about poking our head in the door, asking questions, learning, talking. We use public transportation a lot and we try to stay awhile in each place we visit. People tend to approach us curiously because we’re traveling with a young child, and perhaps because they’ve seen us around during our stays that are relatively long compared with other foreigners. In this way we’ve had more substantive interactions with local people. It helps that Johana is a native Spanish speaker and I’ve become more confident in starting conversations in Spanish.
The road trips in the north of Argentina and Patagonia didn’t lend themselves much towards cultural exchange as we were constantly on the move. But we maintained an effort to eat local foods, visit local markets, playgrounds, and parks, and ask a lot of questions. Plus by driving we could stop anywhere, including in small towns off the beaten path.
Moving forward: We’ll place even more emphasis on longer stays in individual places. We’re also thinking a lot about how we’ll continue to surround ourselves with diversity and build community upon our return to the US.
Planning for the future
Maybe we should have said “buying ourselves time to figure out the future.” Because there’s not a whole lot of planning happening. But this might be for the best. I think we need this year or more to actually arrive at a stronger sense of what we want. Whether one or both of us would be comfortable returning to a job in our former industries. If there is something completely different we’d like to try workwise. Whether one of us would like to continue being a full-time parent until Vienna goes to school. Which cities we’re open to.
Maybe all of this is putting the cart before the horse. After all, we took this time in part to put some distance between ourselves and those practical considerations, so that we could get more in touch with deeper considerations about what kinds of people and what kind of family we hope to be and what it might take to be the versions of ourselves we aspire to be. We can occasionally talk and speculate about the logistics but perhaps more than anything we just need this time, and these experiences together, to arrive at a shared set of values around how we want to live our lives.
Once that happens, hopefully the logistical decisions will be a little more obvious.
Improving our physical, mental, and spiritual health
Taking a gap year in and of itself was a big mental health decision. Initially our decision caused some anxiety in many ways as it was a big change, but we knew that in the long run this is what we needed. We put so much into making this happen and the whole thing was and still is meant to be a chance for us to be more mentally and spiritually grounded. We’re more here for each other. We’re less stressed out. We feel fulfilled in many ways that we had not previously.
Physically, we’ll occasionally do some yoga, I used the bike share program in Buenos Aires for a week, we’ve each done a couple of hikes, we’ve done some work on the farm, we’ve carried Vienna on our shoulders a lot, and we walk a lot. While we may not have been very intentional about exercise so far, we’re not sitting at desks for 8-10 hours each day, we’re getting out in nature a lot more, and we’re moving around. One goal was just keeping up with a child’s energy and being joyful and creatively energetic with Vienna. Having a toddler is hard but the type of lifestyle we’re able to have right now lends itself to keeping up this energy much more than our work-from-home desk routines.
For much of my life I felt a bit ungrounded in that each place I lived felt somewhat temporary, work life eclipsed more fundamental concerns like maintaining community connections and giving voice to creative inclinations. Moving around a lot during our gap year might not seem like the best way to achieve a more grounded lifestyle, but I’m learning to be a little more present in the moment and relax more wherever we are.
One more thing that’s helped has been journaling. Each day there is at least a short reflection, even if it’s just small notes about what happened. Sometimes this leads to deeper reflective writing but even when it doesn’t, it’s nice to take a short pause and think about the day.
Moving forward: Continue to be grateful and take lots of time to reflect and process on what’s working for us as individuals and as a family. We could probably both do with the occasional meditative walk.
What has gone well overall, and what needs to change?
We had very rewarding experiences during the first leg of our gap year. We have a better understanding of Cuban politics and culture, we spent time with family in Colombia and enjoyed the farm, we lived like locals in Buenos Aires, we traveled to one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been in the north of Argentina, did in epic road-trip in Patagonia, connected with some old friends in Chile, and had an impactful cultural immersion in Cusco. We’ve also had a great family dynamic including both structured personal time and family time.
As we reflect on how to make the most of our gap year, we’re grateful for our experiences but also want to think critically about what we might need to do differently to achieve our gap year goals.
Taking a gap year involved significant planning. However, during our actual travels our approach was a bit more spontaneous. We wanted to have the flexibility of staying in places as long as we wanted. This worked great at times but we found ourselves planning on the go, making last minute reservations in less inspiring lodgings, and sometimes paying extra for last minute tickets. We also spent a significant amount of time on road trips. We saw inspiring landscapes and towns but found that moving fast during road-trips didn’t align with our goals.
As we look forward to the next leg of our gap year, we want to plan things out more even if it means less flexibility. We want to base our travels on experiences rather than places. We should first ask: “what is the experience I want to have?” And then: “where can I do that?” “What is the best time to go?” “How can I make that happen?” In that way our time abroad will better align with our goals and hopefully help us avoid some of the challenges we had during “part one.”
