25% Travel

Well, werk seems to be slowing down my blogging these days, which is a very good thing for those of us who like to feel productive in our jobs. On the other hand, I don't want to leave you guys hanging, for fear that you will lose trust in my ability to find some crazy picture or topic to blog about on a regular basis. So...here.we.go.

When I took the job I am in now, my biggest question for my boss was, "What does this little line about '25% travel' mean in the job description?". His answer was that it was pretty standard for a job at my level, and that they included it so that I wouldn't be surprised if it did indeed end up having me on the road 1 out of 4 werk days a year. Lately...I am beginning to see a pattern develop that is slowly building to this '25% travel' standard. And I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

Before I was Jake's wife and Lexi's mom, I probably was living my life from trip to trip (not mention, paycheck to paycheck). Now that I've got a little family unit, a cozy little (rental) house in Denver, and a sweet home.werking gig, it's a little less tempting to hop on a plane to 'exotic' places like Dallas, TX and OshKosh, WI and New York, New York.

When you are stuck in a hotel and don't get to actually 'be in the place you are in', it's kind of like telling someone you've been to Texas before, but only for 30 minutes on a layover at the airport. It's a lot less tempting to be away from home when you're late-twenties metabolism has slowed and you are stuck eating out for breakfast-lunch-and-dinner 5 days in a row (MAKE GOOD CHOICES!).

It's also harder to be away from home when you are used to unwinding at the end of the day with someone, whether that be an extended snuggle with your increasingly-human-golden-retriever, or just brushing your teeth at the same time as your husband and hearing about each other's days through the minty foam in your mouths. Ah, home sweet home...

The allure of traveling for werk is this: WERK.FREEDOM! You are not trapped in your office, whether that be the land.of.cubicles or the home office. Your company is paying for your coffee in the morning, and it's always nice to have someone else buy your coffee for you...right? You are including variety and change in the pace of your werk.life, which is VERY good for the brain and VERY healthy for any creative juices that are probably required of you in one way or another at werk. You are meeting new people (yay for the extroverts!!), you are entering another culture, and you GET to do this for your job (insert, I <3 my job sticker, here). Next week I even get to go to the Dominican Republic and spend time engaging with the most important parts of our organization: our constituents and our beneficiaries. Plus I intend to bring back mounds of delicious coffee beans to further fuel my home.werking.

The worst part about travelling for werk is that Jake can't come with me. He's my best friend, the most interesting person to travel with (ever, in the history of the world), and he likes to really experience a place by trying to be a local (which is the most fun way to travel, unless you are drinking tap water in Mexico. Bad idea.). So this 25% travel thing is a two-sided coin for me. And while I try to make the most of every opportunity I'm given in life, there will always be a big part of me that is sad to be hopping around the world without my best friend. And sometimes, it just feels a lot like this: