When you get to travel for work, as I do, there are plenty of perks. Pillow menus, buffet breakfasts, having someone else make your bed. But behind the veneer of Instagram posts blithely taken at 30,000 feet are the less shiny bits: sleepless nights in strange beds and air conditioning, pre-dawn starts (and feeling like you’re still expected to work until 5pm, or later because there’s no “home” to get to), misreading the weather forecast and packing inappropriately, leaving you boil or shiver.
Melissa Singer with her daughter. Since becoming a mother, I can add missing my daughter to the top of that list. Despite our best efforts, toddlers seriously suck at FaceTime, preferring whichever TV show or toy has their attention – proof that little people crave connection through physical touch.
At least mine does. Still, being apart – whether for work or, shock horror, pleasure – is good for us both. It’s healthy and helps me reconnect with parts of myself – the networker, the party girl, the voracious reader – that aren’t always able to shine as brightly alongside my role as a mother.
As a bonus, going away for more than 24 hours breaks the monotony of the dinner-bath-bed routine and gives these daily rituals a renewed novelty when I return home. And, still, there are plenty of times when I’ve been made to feel as though my choice to travel for work, even when it’s vital to perform my role, somehow makes me a bad mother. Loading Recently, I travelled from.