Patience
Before I took this job, I had some idea that travelling for work would be fun--difficult, but fun. The job description said 4-6 days a month. If you're curious that's 13-20% of each month. Of course, those percentiles are only accounting for the time when your body is physically away. There's also the day(s) leading up to it and the recovery period when your mind is not quite in sync with your body and your spirit is unavailable to those near you. I won't quantify those days since they remain inscrutably subjective.
Now that I am fast approaching a full year as a neo-travelling-sales-woman, I am full ready to find something new. Patience! I tell myself. But my heart remains proudly impatient. A longing for home to stay and feel permanent grows in places that I thought were happy being rootless.
But this is not a season for being rooted--at least not in the traditional way. This is a season for growing in whatever direction is left open for me to grow into. I will fill the space I find around me.
The leaving gets harder. But the coming home gets sweeter. It used to take me 3 full days before I would miss my husband, our peasant style dinner (inevitably built upon beans of some kind), and our home routine. On this particular trip, I began to miss all of it as soon as I excused myself early from the meandering after dinner conversation so that I could begin to pack. It's the disruption, the ripple, the lack of control, and the desire to hold too tightly to each good gift for as long as I can. As soon as I let go, I can anticipate receiving again. Even though I write that so fluidly here, I am still learning how to let go again and again. I am still struggling to relish the anticipation. My impatience threatens me with misery. Only my reclusive sense of humor saves me some days.
One funny effect of traveling and visiting grocery store after grocery store is a certain Tuesday ritual I have begun. Inevitably by lunch on Tuesday of a 5 day trip, I am totally incapable of remembering where I parked the car and I have only a dim idea of which car I was assigned by the rental company. This is fine when it's a beautiful 75 degrees in St. Louis or Fayetteville; but is determinedly less amusing when it's 18 degrees with a howling wind in Salt Lake City or 105 deathly degrees in Oklahoma City. But it happens regardless of the weather or place.
Most people seem to think that travelling for work must be a glorious adventure, especially if you like the company you work for. I like and respect the organization I am a part of, but my travels tend to involve a lot of reading on planes, eating pizza in a bar with strangers, and taking an irresponsible number of baths. On a successful trip, I manage to visit a garden or a museum or a nice park. On a less successful trip, I drive 800 miles through Arkansas during the leafless winter often coming into my hotel after dark. This seems like a good time to mention that I plan 90% of my own trips so success is largely within my control, but even my most successful trips are quiet and inglorious. Even as I type that, the impatience steals back in again. I think I'll be sitting with it awhile until only one of us is still here.
xoxo from Mission, KS
Now that I am fast approaching a full year as a neo-travelling-sales-woman, I am full ready to find something new. Patience! I tell myself. But my heart remains proudly impatient. A longing for home to stay and feel permanent grows in places that I thought were happy being rootless.
The leaving gets harder. But the coming home gets sweeter. It used to take me 3 full days before I would miss my husband, our peasant style dinner (inevitably built upon beans of some kind), and our home routine. On this particular trip, I began to miss all of it as soon as I excused myself early from the meandering after dinner conversation so that I could begin to pack. It's the disruption, the ripple, the lack of control, and the desire to hold too tightly to each good gift for as long as I can. As soon as I let go, I can anticipate receiving again. Even though I write that so fluidly here, I am still learning how to let go again and again. I am still struggling to relish the anticipation. My impatience threatens me with misery. Only my reclusive sense of humor saves me some days.
One funny effect of traveling and visiting grocery store after grocery store is a certain Tuesday ritual I have begun. Inevitably by lunch on Tuesday of a 5 day trip, I am totally incapable of remembering where I parked the car and I have only a dim idea of which car I was assigned by the rental company. This is fine when it's a beautiful 75 degrees in St. Louis or Fayetteville; but is determinedly less amusing when it's 18 degrees with a howling wind in Salt Lake City or 105 deathly degrees in Oklahoma City. But it happens regardless of the weather or place.
Most people seem to think that travelling for work must be a glorious adventure, especially if you like the company you work for. I like and respect the organization I am a part of, but my travels tend to involve a lot of reading on planes, eating pizza in a bar with strangers, and taking an irresponsible number of baths. On a successful trip, I manage to visit a garden or a museum or a nice park. On a less successful trip, I drive 800 miles through Arkansas during the leafless winter often coming into my hotel after dark. This seems like a good time to mention that I plan 90% of my own trips so success is largely within my control, but even my most successful trips are quiet and inglorious. Even as I type that, the impatience steals back in again. I think I'll be sitting with it awhile until only one of us is still here.
xoxo from Mission, KS
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