Challenges of Not Being Home

I’ve only been doing this for a month.  I have a good two or three years of this travel schedule, although perhaps not quite as grueling on every project.  But in just the month I’ve been traveling so far, there are a number of things that I am noticing already.  One thing that has been hard, and unexpectedly so, about being on the road so much is how dirty my apartment gets.  Before I went on my first trip for this job about a month ago, I did a thorough cleaning of the apartment, making sure that everything was put where it belonged.  But each trip home, I drop something on the kitchen table, or let me suitcase spill out over my bedroom.  Mostly it’s paper.  Getting your mail once a week, versus daily, is a little bit overwhelming, and I end up leaving paper everywhere.

But probably the biggest challenge is that life doesn’t stop while I’m gone.  Friends continue to hang out.  Nieces and nephews continue to do really cute things that I now mostly see on Facebook.  But I am a social creature.  More than most, I think.  So when I come home, I try to cram a week worth of life into about 36 hours.  And it is exhausting.  This past weekend, I was away from the airport from 1am Saturday morning until 1pm on Sunday afternoon.  In that time, I drove to and from the airport economy parking lot, slept a total of 14 hours, had people over to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, walked to a parade, found my dad, brother, sister-in-law, et. al. several miles from the parade and went to professional soccer game including an extended tailgate, spent several hours with two of my best friends at their new apartment, did laundry, went to church, and had lunch with my family.  I may have to start making choices.