Spring Break in Paris – a Mother-Daughter Trip

Last spring break I went to Paris for the first time.

With my (then) 17 year old daughter.

Photo: David Restivo – http://www.flickr.com/photos/somemixedstuff/2217011112

To share the magnitude of this with you, please know that I’ve dreamed of going to Paris all my life and for lots of reasons (none really valid, but all very rational) I had never been.

After I had breast cancer, I made a bucket list.  Suddenly, all the things I had wanted to do in life, all the places I had always wanted to go had a lot of immediacy.  

There’s something about getting cancer that will do that to you.  You suddenly realize how short life is, how quickly it can all change; you heavily feel your own mortality with a solid thump.

Paris was #1 on that list.

I’d been to France in my 20’s but just never got around to Paris.  Then I got married and had kids and then…..well any of you moms know what happens then.  Life with kids happens.  Trips to Paris aren’t that easy with 2 toddlers.  Plus I work full time and between kids and work, Paris just seemed harder and harder to squeeze into the mix.

After I had breast cancer in 2010, I made a vow not to wait to fulfill that bucket list anymore and last January, I just took the plunge and decided I was going to take my daughter to Paris during spring break. My son is on the basketball team and once you’re in an organized sport in high school, there are no more family spring break trips, so it was just a mother daughter event.

Continue reading this post on Claudia Schmidt’s blog, My Left Breast