When Someone Else Holds the Map

What it feels like to receive delight instead of always creating it

It was part of the job description to be a good mom: make sure that fun and adventure were part of the plan.

Play came naturally to me. I wanted my son to grow up believing that life was something to participate in, not merely endure (also, let’s be honest - I wanted to play, too).

Travel became another form of play for us. While living in China, I researched surprise trips to Chengdu (to meet pandas on his tenth birthday) and Barcelona (surprise tickets to FC Barcelona! They lost). We stumbled into making it our mission to visit every Disney park and Universal Studios in the world (listen, I contain multitudes. I’ll save my rant about Disney’s version of magic for another day.) We sought out carnivals, elephant sanctuaries, scooter tours, bookstores, cafés, and tiny moments that felt like adventures.

None of it happened by accident.

I didn’t contemplate whether they were worth the effort. I simply accepted that creating magic was part of the job. They were beautiful gifts, and I was happy to give them.

Later, when life changed, adventures got smaller.

Not because I stopped loving adventure.

Because I stopped having the energy to manufacture it.

So instead, I wrote at sunrise. Walked my dog for hours along the lakeshore. Read. Practiced yoga. I went inward, and that was desperately needed. But as I can do with many things, when I went all the way, I went all the way.

In those moments, I believed that the quieter pleasures would always be enough.

For a while, they were. Eventually, they weren’t.

In our little two-person family, I was the planner (unfortunate, given my organization skills). I didn’t know enough to mourn the realization that for much of my life, I’d been the one responsible for generating delight rather than receiving it.

Now, I have people who surprise me. Among them is a friend (hi Ashley!) who will do so with stickers (“Your anxiety is a lying ho”), notebooks (“You were created to do good work”), and by letting me know that we’re going somewhere - but it’s a secret.

Hands clasped, I am practically bouncing in my seat. “I wonder what this is.”

She hesitates. “Do you want to know?”

My answer comes swiftly. “No, don’t tell me” (it was private karaoke!).

Then there’s Jerome, whose plans somehow always involve running for a streetcar. By the end of one afternoon we’ve wandered through the Harbourfront, played ping pong, explored a World Cup festival, and strolled through a night market. Also, there was an interactive digital art exhibit (I was a sorcerer for at least three minutes!).

Somewhere along the way, I realize I’m delighted by not having to know what comes next.

An ordinary Thursday evening

I hear myself say out loud to Ashley: “I haven’t had much of this before.” I’m realizing it as I say it.

I pause, processing. I’m surprised. I’ve had people who joined me in creating adventure. People who supported it. People who enjoyed it with me.

But there have been very few times when someone else imagined the adventure and invited me inside it. Very few who have imagined delight on my behalf.

For most of my life, not knowing was uncomfortable. I researched, planned, and made contingency plans.

Surprise was something I created for someone else, not something I experienced.

But now, I know what it feels like when someone else is holding the map. What it’s like to be the one who simply gets to arrive. Discover. Participate.

I realize I’ve spent decades believing that joy required my labour. Believing that delight was something I created, not something another person could quietly place into my day.

There’s not only pleasure at finally knowing what this feels like.

There’s grief.

It feels like discovering a room in my home that I never knew existed.

The grief isn’t that nobody built it sooner.

It’s that I never even knew to miss it. That I didn’t know it was possible.

That discovery doesn’t erase the labour. Someone still has to hold the map.

It just isn’t always me.