Traveling for Work

There are lots of pros and cons to traveling each week that I could spend days talking about. Usually by Wednesday I’m starting to miss being at home so I’m a little more focused on the cons. Then on Thursday I’m thinking more about the pros as I anticipate working from home the next day and all the things that I’ll be able to accomplish while others are in an office.

I generally feel like I lead two separate lives. There is the Monday-Thursday me who spends long hours in a corporate office somewhere in the U.S., lives out of a suitcase, and has the independence to do whatever I want. Part of me loves this life style because it means seeing new places, meeting new people, and having obligation-free evenings that allow me to do whatever I want. I enjoy not having to make my bed and having fresh towels waiting for me at the end of each day. Plus there are the perks of travel such as the hotel and airline points. The other half of me gets incredibly frustrated by the corporate culture where life revolves around spreadsheets, too much praise is heaped on the person who spends the most hours at their desk staring at their laptop, and thinks that living in a hotel is not normal and sometimes lonely.

Then there is the Friday-Sunday me. Friday-Sunday is when I do the things I enjoy like baking, cooking, cleaning, spending time with my husband, family, and friends, going to my own gym, driving my own car, sleeping in my own bed, and being able to pick from an overfull closet of clothes instead of getting dressed from a small, rolling suitcase. I have the opportunity to do some of my favorite things with my husband like shopping at the farmers market, getting outside to enjoy Michigan’s four seasons, and just being the true me behind the closed doors of my own home. There is really no downside to all this except that when I’m home for too long I get restless. I generally can’t last even a month without feeling the desire to travel, to somewhere, anywhere. So even though there are many Sundays when I resent having to pack my suitcase again, I think I that these two distinct realities create a good balance for me. I guess what I’m saying is that a fundamental part of who I am right now is someone who needs to have two very different realities to really be able to appreciate either one.