I'm going away this week. I wish I could say I was going away for a long, relaxing vacation with my honey or that I were taking my kids to Disney. The reality is, though, that I'm going to New Orleans for a meeting I've gone to every year since 1994. (I think I may have missed one in there somewhere, but I'm not really sure.) It's usually a good time and I get to see people that I rarely see otherwise, but it's felt...difficult...since the kids were born. I feel tugged between a powerful need to be close to them, to support and take care of my family, to be here, and my equally powerful need to get the hell out of Dodge, to be a professional, to sit at the grown-ups table...to be there. This usually translates into my being neither place very well. I long for home when I'm away and I end up traveling in the dark (leaving home at 3 am instead of going the night before, getting home at 1 instead of staying an extra night) which results in exhaustion both during and after the trip. Not to mention that I rarely enjoy the trip or the city- and sometimes this meeting is in some really cool places.
But that was before. I'm determined that this year- which may be the last year of this specific gathering- this year I won't waste it. I've always wanted to go to New Orleans and I'm going to enjoy the music, the food- all of it. I'm going to let go of this deep belief that my family can't function without me, that enjoying my hotel room (and it's a really good hotel room, right in the French Quarter) makes me somehow unfaithful to my husband and my kids. I'm going to take a deep breath as I step off the plane and I'm going to put down my "wife/ mom" bag and pick up my "professional who knows how to have a good time" bag.
I may update. Or I may not. Depends on my mood.
The Badass is willing to shed her responsibilities and, occasionally, laissez les bon temps roulez!
Are you back yet? Did you have a good time? I hope so.
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