Up in the Air

A long time ago, when I was a lot younger (and single!) I dreamt that my job would take me traveling around the world. I wanted to be a journalist because (a) I love to write and (b) I wanted to travel the world without actually having to cough up my own money to do it. Well, fast forward so many years later (I'm not going to say how many), my job has taken me to most of the countries I've wanted to visit at least once in my life, and I consider myself pretty darn lucky.

Scratch that -- I consider myself at this point quite confused.

One the one hand, yes, absolutely, with my love of traveling, getting on and off airplanes should be a joy and a lot of people would actually kill for my job. For crying out loud, Paris 6 times a year! But on the other hand, with my schedule for the next few months, the thought of that smell you smell once you board a plane really makes me kinda sick these days. Add to that the fact that I feel so insanely guilty for leaving the kids all the time - yeah, I totally forget sometimes how "lucky" I am.

I shouldn't be complaining, really. I've gotten so many Facebook comments every time I post that I am traveling about how envious people are at me (or my job, not me per se). And hey, with the amount of packing I do, I can now qualify to be a professional packer or something. Heck, I can probably pack with blindfolds on these days! And it doesn't hurt that I'm getting a pretty decent amount of frequent flyer points these days. On top of that, I also have friends who better replicate George Clooney in his Up in the Air character - they literally barely see land these days and are always flying to and from somewhere. Their best meals have consisted of airport lounge food! I am definitely not jealous of them!

But... on the occasional off day (like today), when I'm packing in the middle of the night have the rare opportunity to watch my children fall asleep in my arms, I tell myself I should try and travel less (though it's not entirely within my control). And, to watch the nanny roll her eyes when I tell her I'm going again is not really that pleasant to see. Or, listening to my husband tell me I'm going to miss another school meeting.

Turns out, it's all for the best that my husband decided to quit his job and do his own thing this year because he now has time to do all these parent-teacher school meetings! Who would have thought?

Just to fill you in on my travel schedule over the next few months: Singapore, Surabaya, Singapore, Paris, Geneva, Paris and Paris again... All between now and February 2011. Yikes, just reading all those destinations gave me shivers.

So is the glass half full or half empty? Am I lucky or am I unfortunate? Shall this just be left undecided and be considered just another typical dramatic rant of mine?

Yeah - the last one, probably.

But, I'll say this: when New Year's comes around and it's time for another round of resolutions, I think one of mine will be to ask my boss if I could tone down the traveling a bit. :)