Thanks in large part to my role as a husband and a father, there is, believe it or not, a rhythm and a flow and a structure to my day-to-day life—and I say “believe it or not” because it often seems that my day-to-day life is nothing if not rhythmless, flowless and structureless.
The existence of that structure is most noticeable for its absence when I travel on business. With that structure removed, I often have difficulty doing things—things like eating meals during the normal hours at which those meals are supposed to be eaten, and going to bed at something other than a time whose proximity to dawn means I’ve stayed up far, far too late.
More so than all of that, though, I just don’t feel right when I’m away from my wife and kids. Sure, it’s nice to get a break, and I definitely don’t miss the screaming or the fighting or the crying or the getting woken up at pitch-black-o’clock in the morning, but I mostly miss the three of them, and I feel kind of rudderless and lost when they aren’t a part of my daily life.
Also: air travel? Yeah, not a big fan. Love visiting far-away places; hate getting there. Being a high-strung, generally anxious, hypochondriacal control freak greatly lessens my ability to enjoy climbing into a giant aluminum tube/petri dish with 150 or so strangers and trusting a couple dudes up front to successfully guide through the sky at 450 miles per hour, five miles above the earth’s surface, a massive hunk of metal filled with people and luggage.
You wanna see an uncomfortable human being? Check me out on a flight that is experiencing turbulence during the final approach. That’s when I turn the color of something a few shades paler than white, break out in a cold sweat and beg my stomach to stop doing the meringue. It’s mostly a motion-induced ailment caused by my oh-so-fragile equilibrium, but I’m guessing that the added possibility of, you know, dying in a horrific and fiery crash adds just the right psychosomatic element to the mix.
Thus, I am incredibly thankful that my job does not require me to travel with any frequency, and I feel for those parents—particularly the air-travel-phobic ones—who have to fly all over the place on business multiple times per month. If placed in that position, I would be either a wholly frazzled and miserable fuck, or unemployed.
Thankfully, my business travel is limited almost exclusively to covering the annual SXSW Music Festival in Austin, and that trip is a mostly kick-ass time that involves doing things like drinking and watching bands perform—and, if you’ve been following my Twitter feed, you know that the highlight of this year’s trip was attending an exclusive, surprise Metallica concert at a small outdoor venue behind a barbecue joint. The amount of ass that show kicked was hefty and voluminous.
But after spending a few nights in a hotel, and eating a lot of greasy food, and drinking a fair amount of alcohol, and keeping vampire’s hours, I always hit that point at which I’m ready to get back home.
(And, just for the record, that point came this year roughly around the time I took this:
That’s The Crystal Method spinning a DJ set at a packed club Saturday night, and I felt like I was about 10 years, two glowsticks and three Ecstasy tablets away from being in the right demographic for that show.)
No matter how much fun I have in Austin, the feeling of “right”-ness I get when the plane finally touches down in Boston is visceral … and I have experienced few things as rewarding or fulfilling as seeing my kiddos burst into big smiles and shout “Daddy!” excitedly and repeatedly as they ran to me in the terminal yesterday and wrapped their arms around me. Sure, I was home for less than 24 hours when I first felt tempted to shove a sock in their mouths and duct tape them to a wall, but I know there’s no place I’d rather be than right here with them.
Either that, or on a tropical beach somewhere with Wonder Woman, scantily clad, cold beverage in hand, the surf lapping at our toes, and, hey, you know what? I’m ready to deal with flying again! Honey, pack our bags …
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Stuff it
Someday, my children will say to me, “Daddy, what happened to it?”
And I will say, “What happened to what, dear children?”
And they will say, “Our inheritance.”
And I will say, “You wanted toys.”
That’s Texas Armadillo Ranger on the left, and a bear who may or may not be named Austin on the right. (Depends on Jayna’s mood.) And I can tell how much Zan loves me, because he waited at least a full minute after my arrival before asking me on the way to baggage claim if I had brought him anything from Texas.