IT STARTED WITH ATTITASH.
I had had a desire to vacation on Cape Cod for almost 20 years.
It felt out of reach because I thought only people with lots of money vacationed there. I mean they do, but that assumption that I had to hit a certain level before I could embody the woman who vacations there was BOGUS.
I just didn’t understand that then.
After my second divorce, money was tight.
I mean super tight.
The kids and I were living on child support and student loans as I finished my first master’s degree and launched my business.
But I was determined to make sure we always took a vacation together every summer.
It was a non-negotiable.
That first summer I took them to Attitash Mountain and Storyland and we stayed in a motel for two nights.
It wasn’t the kind of vacation I ultimately wanted to take them on, but I did what I could at the time.
It became non-negotiable for me to do better the next year.
The next year I took them to Old Orchard Beach.
We did more things.
We stayed in a nicer place, I think for a longer period of time.
It felt like an actual vacation.
After that, I was in a relationship and he and I took the kids to Florida and D.C.
When I was on my own again, I took them back to DC over a school vacation week for even longer.
And last summer …
I took them to Cape Cod.
I remember my eyes welling, thinking: FUCK YES I DID IT!
And honestly, it wasn’t much more money if at all to do the Cape vacation than Attitash.
I had just had a mindset at that time that I wasn’t yet worthy of or able to do a Cape vacation, so it seemed inaccessible to me.
WHAT YOU WANT IS ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE.
It’s just a matter of minding your non-negotiables. And stepping them the hell up.
This summer we go back to the Cape because we love it there.
As I knew we would.
Start where you are and keep challenging yourself to level up.
The non-negotiables you set determine what you live.
With love,
Melissa
xoxoxo