I was recently working away from home on a business trip. The flight there involved a twin prop aircraft and as our route followed the coastline for most of the journey, my head was filled with irrational thoughts of plunging into the water below. Would I be able to reach the life jacket under my seat? The cabin space was tiny!
After spending the first ten minutes staring out of the window at the propellers and wings looking for loose rivets, I did manage to relax and take in the beautiful views of the 19-mile beach I was flying over. The rolling waves looked as if someone had dipped a splayed brush in white paint and dabbed it all over the indigo canvas below. I realised it had been too long since I had travelled to new places and saw beautiful sights from new angles. I made a mental note that more travelling must be done!
My hotel turned out to be lovely, the food was fabulous and people were so friendly in my new home away from home. It got better. The sun shone every day and I was able to walk to and from work. That was forty minutes exercise, every day, just like that. I even managed to return to the hotel at a decent hour every day. Now usually I drive to work five days each week, spending anything from two hours to three hours travelling in my car each day. That means it’s hard to drag myself out of bed at an ungodly hour to get ready and leave for work; and by the time I arrive home at night, dinner is overdue and exercise is well…non-existent.
It gets even better. I know it sounds it impossible, but it did. I had no dishes to wash up, no cleaning up or laundry to do, and even no handing out cash like an ATM to my teenage son. Where was I really, because this place could have been called Heaven.
As my week of business ended, I looked forward to getting home to see my children and this time I had no thoughts about plunging into the water on the flight back. Instead of coastline this time, I watched the sky turns incredible shades of tangerine, orange, and ruby red with a magnificent sunset.
Arriving home, I realised just how bogged down I had become with chores, TV, late nights, early rises, cooking, cleaning, and commuting. Rise for work, then home for a few hours of madness and bed. On and on that cycle had continued, increasingly taking up more of my time and energy, time that didn’t wholly serve me and that I would never get back. My short trip away from home, had brought it all home. It was time to press pause on a few things, time to delete a few others and time to re-work everything else.
There is nothing like a trip away from home (on your own of course!) to open your eyes to all the trappings, and all the possibilities that await you.