May 1, 2010

Last Week I Flew Away......

Last week saw me fly to Melbourne for work. As you can imagine, this was incredibly difficult for me. I was forced to leave my three children for three whole nights, which was wrenching and painful. Without my husband by my side, I felt lonely and sad. And, alone in my lovely hotel room with only the television, my laptop, and a room service hamburger and chips to keep me company, I felt lost and adrift, like a dinghy floating out in a cold, dark sea.

And if you believed any of the above, then I suggest you move away from the screen, slap yourself hard across the face, and ask yourself what has happened to your life that you could possibly think such a thing.

Because I had an absolute ball. From the moment the taxi driver carried my bag into the car (he carried my bag! Do you know what that’s like? Most days I’m carrying two school bags, a toddler, a two litre bottle of milk, a handbag, and the guilt of having yelled at my kids within three minutes of picking them up from school!!!) I felt light and free and Very Important, only the good kind of important, not the kind that involves three little people depending on you to make them sausages for dinner and find their sports shoes in the morning.

Flying to Melbourne, I felt relaxed and at ease – so at ease, in fact, that when turbulence hit, I didn’t grip tightly onto the armrests, brace myself for a crash, and fixate on the faces of the flight attendants (you know... to see if they turned white with fear or kept pouring tea and distributing bikkies) but looked cheerfully out the window, knowing the bouncing would soon ease. (Okay, so I was clenching my jaw so hard my tooth almost snapped off, but it was still an improvement on my previous efforts.)

Once I landed in Melbourne I took a taxi to my hotel. And the hotel was delightful. Now, to be honest, I could have stayed in a campervan and I would have enjoyed the break from the kids and housework (provided it had its own toilet facilities. Nothing will compensate for having to share a bathroom.) But to have a break from my life in gorgeous surroundings with big fluffy white pillows and my very own mini-bar was just too good to be true. That evening I sat on the bed and ate room service and looked out at the view and wondered just how long it would take me to miss my kids. And I figured, probably not too long, but definitely longer than 12 hours. And I was right.

By the time I returned home, some 60 hours later, I felt quite refreshed and renewed. I had missed my kids and was ready to return, but was grateful for the time I’d had away. Time to be me, and not a mum. Time to meet new people, with a clean, fresh slate. Time to do some work away from my own little desk. Time to move outside of my own world and step into another, if only for a few days.

Because life is big, and you need to taste different parts of it. And if you can do it in a gorgeous hotel with big fluffy pillows, well, that’s just a bonus.

23 comments:

  1. I LOVE that last par... we all need a chance to be ourselves, and what better place than one with room service and lovely little free bottles of L'Occitane and maybe also the BeBe that you smuggled in from home? Would love to hear how your husband coped in your absence though. Did he meet you at the airport on his knees, with a choir behind him singing paeans to your domestic skills, then begged you never to leave again? Or had he just brought in a nanny/grandmother and got on with it?

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  2. As an ex airline person, I've stayed in LOTS of 5 star hotels {Na na na na na !}and if I could, I'd live in one full time. No lawns to mow,no laundry to do,and a choice of a squillion things to order from room service. Of course, after the GFC hit, the Fenders were reduced to 3 star motels. Ain't life a bitch ?.....

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  3. Just don't mistake big fluffy white pillows for big fluffy white marshmallows.

    Thanking you ... am off for a week in two days, kid free, hubby free and having a bed to myself ... I can now know what it will be like without having to worry about it.

    You rock! :)

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  4. Good on you!

    That sounds like bliss. I'd like a big slice of that if/when it's going around. x

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  5. Love love love this. When I read the first par I was all: "*sigh* i am such a bad mother cos if that was me I wouldn't feel that way." And boom - neither did you. Heh. Awesome - yes, we all need to be other than mother sometimes. :-)

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  6. Life is big. Thank you for reminding me of this. I am holding out for feeling light and free and feeling Very Important. Even if it is only for a day or so.
    Brilliant post.
    Again.

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  7. Once Mothering is part of your life, you gotta taste freedom every chance you get. Time alone is like time with a unicorn. So if and when it comes your way, grab it and do not let it go until it is ripped from you. I never ever missed my children, even though people made me feel as if I should and that I was "harsh" or "abnormal" for lapping up my time away from them. Sure I would "think" about them and hope they were okay, but MISS them...Nah uh. I would cheerfully torture anyone who harms them physically or emotionally and I have no idea who I would be without them, but time away from them always served to refresh ME, the woman, and help me re-focus on how much each of my children have become part of me and my life and how much I love them. Being around them and there for them all the time, you can lose sight of that.

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  8. Yippee - I find few things more enticing now than fresh sheets and fluffy towels that I don't have to wash. Seriously, I don't have very high standards anymore. Oh, except room service...LOVE it that no one can complain about my bikkie crumbs in bed!!

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  9. At my previous workplace, when I was lucky enough to go away for training or a conference (sadly not often because I worked one day a week; I'm suprised they let me go at all!) I was notorious for my behaviour. I would do whatever was necessary workwise, then the absolute minimum socialising with workmates (whom I liked very much), maybe one drink at the bar or a quick dinner. Then I would sneak to my hotel room (seriously before 8.30pm) without saying goodbye. I would get out my little bottle of cab sav, I'd run a bath, I'd read, I'd watch a movie. Bliss. Sometimes I did those things all at once. Bliss. Then I would sleep all night which is a type of bliss I find it hard to put words to. I never slept in, I went down to the restaurant, got a paper & a coffee and avoided eye contact with everyone. I just realised how much detail I've gone into here. I think it's time to go again, as I have goosebumps thinking about it. xx

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  10. Sounds like heaven! But do tell, what were you doing in Melbourne?

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  11. In answer to Kylie's question, my husband had enlisted the help of the kids' grandparents (maternal grandparents, mind you!) and was remarkably refreshed and relaxed himself. The pile of laundry had also grown quite dramatically in my absense.
    And Anonymous: I was there for a writing job. Research. On fluffy pillows. And other stuff. But the pillows were most important.

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  12. Damn. No choirs. Maybe suggest that for next time.

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  13. Hmm, research. Will we be hearing more about what this research was for? Or were you researching the effect of 3 days of bliss all to yourself, because if that's what the research was for you did a damn fine job already! I'm sitting here jealous as anything...

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  14. This sounds better than the break I recently had - that of my partner going away for 3 days. But even though it was him that had the break, I felt thoroughly refreshed myself!

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  15. Sounds just blissfully fabulous. Oh, how I ACHE for such a journey!!!

    You forgot to mention the company of your Tweeps in the hotel room. We were the ones green with jealousy over your tweets that night. ;)

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  16. I'm off to a hotel this weekend but clearly I am not as clever as you because I'm taking them all with me. By all, I mean the family. The whole family. Kids too. Fluffy pillows I will have, but that will be about it. Thank you for reminding me how it should be done.

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  17. I'm off to a hotel this weekend but clearly I am not as clever as you because I'm taking them all with me. By all, I mean the family. The whole family. Kids too. Fluffy pillows I will have, but that will be about it. Thank you for reminding me how it should be done.

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  18. Hmm, research. Will we be hearing more about what this research was for? Or were you researching the effect of 3 days of bliss all to yourself, because if that's what the research was for you did a damn fine job already! I'm sitting here jealous as anything...

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  19. At my previous workplace, when I was lucky enough to go away for training or a conference (sadly not often because I worked one day a week; I'm suprised they let me go at all!) I was notorious for my behaviour. I would do whatever was necessary workwise, then the absolute minimum socialising with workmates (whom I liked very much), maybe one drink at the bar or a quick dinner. Then I would sneak to my hotel room (seriously before 8.30pm) without saying goodbye. I would get out my little bottle of cab sav, I'd run a bath, I'd read, I'd watch a movie. Bliss. Sometimes I did those things all at once. Bliss. Then I would sleep all night which is a type of bliss I find it hard to put words to. I never slept in, I went down to the restaurant, got a paper & a coffee and avoided eye contact with everyone. I just realised how much detail I've gone into here. I think it's time to go again, as I have goosebumps thinking about it. xx

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  20. Love love love this. When I read the first par I was all: "*sigh* i am such a bad mother cos if that was me I wouldn't feel that way." And boom - neither did you. Heh. Awesome - yes, we all need to be other than mother sometimes. :-)

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  21. Good on you!

    That sounds like bliss. I'd like a big slice of that if/when it's going around. x

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