Last Friday, after supper with my parents, I was chatting with my mom about how I felt my life lacked interest. I was lamenting my ‘boring’ routines, my failure to yet have really traveled, my subdued social life and my tendency to plan and organize my way out of any spontaneity. Apparently, the universe was listening, and decided to respond with a big, “Oh yeah?”

I joke to Alex that I should have been careful what I wished for after a jam-packed weekend that left me little time to recharge – reunion dress shopping and birthdays and pumpkin patches…oh my! Silly me, I thought that this was my reminder that no, my life is not boring, and also that I appreciate the lulls that give me time to think and recharge. But oh, just wait…

Into work I come Monday morning, expecting to need to book my hotel in Toronto, where I’ll be for work for the weekend. Nice, tidily planned, fly-in, fly-out, work and meet some extended family for dinner. Then the reason I was going to Toronto got canceled…and I was being sent to New Jersey. Okay, alright, I can do that – planning now, and what comes up but another shoot in Massachusetts? Well, since I’m already on the east coast…and so on.

Result: I fly into Newark, NJ, on Friday evening, work Saturday, take the train Sunday morning down to Providence, RI. Get in in the afternoon, wander for a couple of hours. Work Monday, take the train on Tuesday up to New York City (as I wouldn’t make it back to Newark in time for the one flight per day West Jet flies out of there, and given the choice between Newark and NYC for an afternoon and a morning…I pick NYC. Shockingly.) Take the train at noon on Wednesday from Penn Station in NYC to the Newark airport, fly home (another 2 hour layover in Calgary), get in at 11:45pm PST. Back to work Thursday, two days before we launch the biggest project of my fledgling career.

I’m excited at the same time as being terrified – something in me is convinced I’ll take the wrong train or something, ending up completely lost in some random spot on the east coast. It’s the first time I’ve traveled for business, first time I’ve traveled alone since I was 16. Can’t wait to see New England in October, and to wander around NYC for a few hours. I’m working on having the excitement out-balance the fear.

In any case, remind me to never, ever complain that my life is boring again.

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