This past week, I had the opportunity to attend a conference for work. Now, let me preface this by saying that while I finished my master's three years ago and have been in the business world for almost two years now, I am not the kind of woman who "goes on business trips." I drive a really shitty Sunfire. I wear TOMS or flip flips to work every day, and until a year ago, I was still bartending on the weekends to make ends meet. The idea of a business trip was completely foreign to me.
When my boss proposed I go, I briefly lamented leaving my four-month-old baby, toddler, and seven-year-old, but the feeling passed. Quickly. This was the most grown-up thing I'd ever been asked to do! I was getting hotel room! "Expensing" valet parking! And the keynote speaker was a bona fide celebrity.
Still, I pushed those thoughts away, and focused on the miraculous concept that in a few short hours, I'd be in a brand new luxury hotel room entirely by myself. No kids. No lunches to pack, diapers to change, infants to nurse in the purple blackness of 4 a.m. Sure, the conference was only 77 miles away, but the idea of being alone in a hotel room was all the exotic I needed. (I'd often joked with Lee when birthdays and Mother's Days rolled around that what I truly wanted was a hotel room to myself.)