One of the questions I’ve been asked most since sharing that I’m leaving my job and going to Syria is:

“What do your parents think?”

I always find that question a little strange.

I’m a grown woman, and I sometimes wonder whether people would ask a man the same thing.

But I understand why people are curious.

My mom and I have always had very different ideas of what a good life looks like. She values stability, security and a life that doesn’t have to be more difficult than necessary.

I seem to do the opposite.

I deliberately put myself in situations that challenge the way I think. Sometimes that means travelling alone to places most people wouldn’t choose. Other times, it means turning my PhD defence into a story about a little prince who wants to save the world.

The easy and comfortable path has never really felt like an option to me.

That doesn’t mean my choices have always worked out well. I’ve fallen flat on my face more than once. And sometimes I look at my mother and think: maybe she has a point.

Why do I keep choosing things that are difficult?

I don’t have a particularly good answer.

I have a stable job. I earn a good salary. I can go home before 4am and leave work behind.

And I’m not thriving in it.

My dad is my biggest fan. But he also sometimes puts his hand on my shoulder and says something along the lines of:

“I really hope you find a man, have some children and build a life where you don’t always need to climb mountains.”

Not necessarily literal mountains.

That one hits harder, because I want those things too.

My biggest fear about leaving my job wasn’t Syria.

It was that I might be moving further away from having children.

I’m turning 35 soon, and I dream of having a family one day.

For years, every time I planned another trip, I told myself:

This will be the last one. Then I’ll start building a more conventional life.

I would return to dating and try to become a slightly more sensible version of myself.

When I spoke about the adventurous part of my life, I often added:

“Of course, I would never do this if I had children.”

I think I said it because I was afraid that this part of me didn’t look like good “mother material.”

For a long time, I treated it as something temporary, partly because people often spoke about it as if it were something I would eventually grow out of.

One last trip.
One last mountain.
One last adventure.

And then I would become serious about the life I was supposed to want.

But I don’t think this is something I need to grow out of.

It isn’t a phase, and it isn’t a part of myself I want to hide.

I’m taking the adventure seriously now.

Not because I have stopped dreaming of love or children. I haven’t.

But if I never get the family I dream of, and I also spend these years abandoning the life I want to live, then I risk losing both.

I still hope there is room for both.

I just can’t keep putting one dream on hold while waiting for the other.