Los Cabos life-changer

Being the worrier I am, I was more on the half-glass-empty kind of side, but getting out of the cold and having a change of scenery won the bid, and there we were.

It’s February in Winnipeg, Canada and the temperature is a balmy minus twenty degrees with a slight wind chill factor of minus one hundred and five. The wind is so cold that when you stiffly walk to your car to drive to the nearest 7-Eleven to get a cream soda and coke Slurpee, your skin will freeze in 0.3 seconds.  

But I’m not thinking about that dreadful walk to the car or scraping the two-inch thick ice off my windshield. Nope, not me, not today because for the next seven days I am in Los Cabos heaven. I’ve got a piña colada in my hand and nothing— oh nothing—could interrupt this special moment I am having with this swaying hammock, the hot sun and this perfect breeze… “MOMMY!!! I have to go pee-pee!” Well, except for that.  

Now, my partner in crime was all for this trip with our two and three-year-old children. “Like come on,” he’d say, “who wouldn’t want to spend a week in Mexico, away from the cold, from work, from having to cook or clean?” Being the worrier I am, I was more on the half-glass-empty kind of side, but getting out of the cold and having a change of scenery won the bid, and there we were.  

We had never travelled with both our kids before, and with them being so young we had a lot to think about—packing, flying, eating, diaper changing, strollering, swimming (why are those swimming diapers so damn expensive?!), etc., etc. As any parent can attest, your mind never shuts off. You are always thinking, planning, remembering, forgetting, adjusting—now throw travel into the equation, and your mind might just spontaneously combust. But the idea was to go for a week and have the luxuries my partner was dreaming about and hopefully (with fingers tightly crossed of course), the rest would just be a side note.  

Yes, the diapers still needed changing, and the public and private tantrums still needed nixing. The tension between my lovely partner and I still came because the baby bedtime challenges were still happening and even more so than at home because it wasn’t home.  But, aside from the craziness of life that inevitably followed us down to beautiful Cabo (and I truly wouldn’t change that craziness for a thing), the trip was incredibly memorable for me on more than just a surface level.

The first day we walked down to the sea, I was in awe. I’ve seen the ocean a few times before, and I’ve even sailed on the wide-open sea in my early twenties, but looking back I can say that the “awe” factor just wasn’t there.

This experience was different, so very different.  

I would take time to myself every day on our trip whether it was to catch the sunrise, the sunset or just in the middle of the day when afforded some alone time, and I would sit, and listen, and watch. It was then, sitting by the ocean in complete and utter peace that I realised that there is something so much bigger than myself, than us, and it doesn’t come in the physical form; it’s deeper than that—you can only feel it.  

I feel incredibly blessed to say that our trip gifted me with a new perspective on life. And the gift was the realisation that life is—that I am—now. It wasn’t yesterday, and it isn’t tomorrow, it doesn’t come with material things, it is just simply now, and we are meant to be here, in our moments just as they are actually happening, now.  

After my alone time with the majestic, all-knowing ocean, I would return to my family where something was always happening, and I’d give them the biggest hugs and kisses and appreciate their presence and happenings more than I ever had.

Author - Hiede Admiraal

Hiede Admiraal is from Canada. She writes part time for Travelher and loves a good read, being outside, laughing until it hurts, and date nights. She and her partner Griffen have two beautiful children.