Last weekend I traveled without my family for the first time. While James has traveled for work regularly throughout our married life, ever since having kids I have been the one to stay put and hold down the fort. Also, I've had a nursing baby for most of the last seven years, so it has been impractical, if not impossible, for me to leave. But when we started going over the details of having the whole family travel to Wisconsin for a family event, we realized it was going to be a not insignificant burden to get us all comfortably accommodated in the Midwest for days, so James suggested I go alone.
I protested at first, not even understanding the concept. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it madeโand then I booked plane tickets in record time. I had a fantastic weekend. I stayed up too late and drank too much every single night. I had wonderful, far-reaching conversations with dear friends over a couple days in Chicago I even visited the Art Institute!
It felt almost transgressive, going places and enjoying myself without my children around. Having wine with lunch, lingering over dinner, staying at the bar until 2am, wandering aimlessly through the galleries of the museum, poring over tile at the Kohler Design Center. You know, doing the things I used to do, way back when, before kids.
When you put other people's needs before your own, all day, every day, for years, it's a mighty strangeโalmost uncomfortableโfeeling to spend a few days thinking only about yourself and what you want.
But it's also necessary. That's what I realized last weekendโhow much I need those kinds of moments, trips, relationships that are unencumbered by small children, where deep thought can begin its work, where I can start to hear and remember myself. Even riding the train alone or walking down the street to meet a friend, or sleeping in a bed all by myself, felt so pleasurable and effortlessโand let me encounter the world in my own way. I'm a self-described ambivert: I desperately need alone time to feel settled in myself and present in the world, and I desperately need friends and social events for excitement, laughter, and connection.
