The Ramblings of a Traveling Man

Oh the glorious life of a traveling man. Its always one of glitz and glam. At least that is what most people think about when they hear that I get to travel for my job. Its always the same comments no matter where they come from, " you get to eat out", "you get to see cool places", "you get to entertain" etc etc etc.

Well I will admit it was exciting and flashy at the beginning. But truth behind it all is its a job. Its not glamorous. It often times sucks. Imagine getting up at 4:00am to get ready and get to the airport to fly out by 6:30 to catch a layover in a different city. Finally you get to your destination on the west coast.... you have traveled now for 8 hours and your day is starting out in your territory.... oh and by the way its only 12 noon. You get the privilege of spending the next 6 hours making says calls and finally getting to your hotel for the night. Maybe you have to do dinner with a customer or sales rep or you are lucky and you get to sit alone at a restaurant again. You finally get to crash after being up and running for what amounts to be close to 20hours.

You get glimpses of home through phone calls, emails, and picture messages. Those things help to make the week go by but it always leaves you longing for more. You want to see your family, you want to be there when things aren't going the best. You want to be there more.

I chose this profession and this job. I chose it because it allows for me to provide for my family in a manner that dramatically better than anything I have done before. But it comes at a cost. A cost of missing pretty much half of everything. It is roughly 26 weeks into the year and I have been gone away from home for 13 of them. Excluding the weekends that is about 60 days so far that I have been gone from home. Gone from seeing my daughter grow up, gone from my wife, gone from my home and other responsibilities and last but not least gone from my own bed.

The glitz and glam has warn off. The going out to eat and entertaining gets old. I would prefer to be at home with my family. I would prefer to eat the home made food and their leftovers on a daily basis. I would prefer to be at home every night. But I wouldn't be able to provide for my family like I am now. My wife bears a lot of the burden when I am gone. She is the only married/single mom I know. Having a husband but raising your daughter 75% of the time on your own is quite frustrating, demanding, and often hell. She is amazing that she is able to handle it. She is amazing that she keeps things running as smoothly as they are. Thank you to my wife for being the center point of our family!

Oh the glitz and Glam.