Leaving Las Vegas

I wrote this on the plane, on my way back to Cbus from Las Vegas on Friday...and forgot to post it...
I'm in the airport, leaving Las Vegas for home-sweet-home.

When people know I'm going out of town for work, I always laugh when they say "Oh, how much fun! Have a great time!" or "How cool! I'm so jealous!"

The people who say these things are usually either young or they have jobs that don't require business travel. Because generally speaking, people with kids – and people who are accustomed to traveling for work – aren’t really that into it. They know the real deal.

Don’t get me wrong. Back in the day, before Ella and Kate, I actually looked forward to business travel. When I was right out of college, I thought it was super cool. At first, I had assumed business travel would be a great way to see the world.

Then I realized that you don't get to see much of the world when you're in a bunch of conference rooms for meetings, or eating rubber chicken for lunch and dinner, in facilities erroneously called 'ballrooms…' when you don’t ever get to dance in them.

Even after that shiny luster of business travel wore off, back in my late 20s, I thought 'business travel' seemed so…important. "You mean YOU want to PAY for ME to FLY to Las Vegas??" "Wow!"

Now, I find myself trying to conceive of every possible way to avoid business travel. "Do we really need to do this face to face? Can we accomplish this on the phone?"

I just generally, totally dislike traveling for business travel. And here are the two reasons why.

Reason #1


Reason #2


I mean, for real. There's no business meeting, no destination, no U.S. city that really seems 'worthy' of me leaving these two sweet faces. (Yes, maybe Paris would be worthy. But it’d still be questionable.)

For this reason, I get stressed out and start dreading business travel, weeks before I actually have to leave. I get feverishly protective of my time with the girls. I get crabby and feel guilty. The pendulum of ‘to work or not to work’ swings really far to the right, and I start questioning if I should just give up the work world to stay home with my peas.

Then Chris, ever the voice of reason, reminds me that I have to go out of town for work once, maybe twice per year. That’s it’s really not that big of a deal. He reminds me to be grateful that I have a job I generally enjoy; and get fairly compensated for; at a good company that treats me well. He also reminds me that my spending on Etsy.com would be seriously dented if I decide to grab onto that ‘to work or not to work’ pendulum that swings too far to right sometimes.

I know he’s right. Especially when it comes to me needing to be thankful for my job. But I still stew about it and feel conflicted for a while. I stew for 3 weeks before the travel and the entire duration of the travel…until the moment….after the cross-country flights, the layovers, the bad airport food….the trip to the ‘red lot’ to get my car…the drive home at 1 a.m…..the moment when I get to walk through the door, run up the stairs and see my sweet peas sleeping soundly in their cute little beds. Most likely, in pull ups (no jammies) and dirty faces because their daddy let them go to bed without a bath.

At that moment, the stewing is over and the knots in my stomach subside and I step back in from the ledge of “to work or not to work?” because, I am finally where I want to be. Where all is well with the world. Where my heart is. With the love of my life. In our home. With my girls.