Tomorrow morning I head off to a grants conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. There is nothing like a business trip to rip open all kinds of psychological fissures. You’d need a dozen octopi for all the “one the one hand… on the other hand…” situations. The crowning aspect of any business trip, of course, is that it leaves one partner home alone with no shift change. This, Shannon does not like- not that she should. I don’t like that part of it much, either. As difficult as evenings can be (with Vivi’s hijinks), there’s no substitute for simply being there with the girls – which is what’s made it so unpleasant for me to be cut out of the bedtime routine these last few weeks and months.
On the other hand, I love traveling and especially seeing new places. Skidmore and Saratoga Springs both sound like fascinating places that’ll eat up my few hours of downtime. Having attended earlier iterations of this conference, I know it too will be great in all the important ways – such as finding new ways to drum up money for the college.
On the other other hand, travel like this is a pretty far cry from relaxing. The days are, after all, full of rather intense work. And yes, as Shannon reminds me, I can eat what and when I want and sleep without a baby monitor buzzing in my ear. But airplanes are not exactly dens of comfort and bliss, and having had quite a bit of the usual modern air-travel trouble every time I’ve flown for business, I doubt I’m going to arrive in Saratoga Springs tomorrow feeling particularly tanned, rested, or ready. But if all goes well, I will probably head home on Friday in a pretty good mood.
…and go to the bathroom alone and watch TV in the evenings instead of sitting by the toddler’s bed until she falls asleep and not have to feed anyone else during meals and not have to change any Pull-Ups or overnight diapers and sleep uninterrupted all night long and have food that someone else prepared for you and get to skip washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, and all other chores and read for pleasure during breaks or at the end of the day and sit in silence after work if you want (at least for awhile) and read things other than Sandra Boynton books and spend 4 days completely free of all toddler tantrums and kid fussing/whining….
Call me unempathic, but I still say business travel, though no one’s first choice, is a much better deal than being the full-time stay-at-home parent during the same time period! I think pretty much any SAHM reading this would respond with, “Cry me a river!”
However, the girls and I do wish you didn’t have to work so hard and that you could stay home, and we hope that one day the 4 of us can go on a trip that is an actual vacation, not just a business trip.
Oh, I’m not asking for sympathy, not in the least and certainly not from you, someone who readily accesses her “unempathetic” side. All I’m saying is that business trips aren’t exactly pleasure trips. Though, yes, they’re not as rough as being at home can be.
Traveling is good for both of two purposes, one is for the work to comply and second is for pleasure. When you travel, there is nothing you can think of besides loneliness because it is true that you have somebody you have left at home, and still you keep on saying it is for them, you travel because its business, you travel because you want them to have a good future, and you travel for the sake that you also wants to travel with them in the coming time…
Having been on both sides (traveling on business and leaving the kids with my husband; and my husband traveling on business and leaving me with the kids), I can empathize with both of you.
Christopher – Safe travels.
Shannon – I’m sure you have an arsenal of stuff to keep you and the kids occupied. Hang in there.
We’ll be fine. I’ve gotten very used to being alone for a few days a few times a year. It is way easier than when the girls were, say, 2 and not even 1, or 1 and 3. Plus, it will never, ever again be as bad as the time C. left for 5 days when the girls were 1 and 3 and I was the sickest I have ever been with a 10-day long sinus infection and a fever that went on for the entire time he was gone. I had to call a friend whose husband is a doctor, who was ON VACATION AT THE TIME, on a Sunday night, to beg and cry for a called-in antibiotics prescription. And yes, I did bring the girls to music class and preschool and everything else we had to do at the time, in between three separate doctor appointments (for me). Oof! Now that was bad.