Dubai!

I just got home Friday afternoon from a week long trip to Dubai!  Hence, the reason I am writing this at 3 AM on Sunday morning.  Still adjusting to the jet lag.

Wow, what an incredible trip.  I have only been out of North America twice.  The first time was about 6 years ago, before Ben was born, when I went to Milan, Italy for a few days --- for work.  And for my second venture off the continent I got to travel to the Middle East.  Pretty cool.  And this was the longest I've left my family since Benjamin was born.  I don't think I've left for more than two nights since Katie has been born.

The trip was just fantastic for a number of reasons.  First, it just made me love my job and company even more (I traveled for work, of course).  I am not "expected" to travel for my job, since I am still part-time, so the company paid for my mom's flight to Houston to help take care of the kids while I was gone!  This made the decision for me to take the trip so much easier.  We were able to time the trip to coincide with Mark's week off from work, but I needed to leave on Saturday afternoon (due to the length of the flight - 14 hours, plus the work week being different in Dubai - Sunday - Thursday), and Mark had a BIG concert this same weekend (I hope he'll write more about this --- he was a featured performer with the HSO...).  So I didn't want to rely on babysitters for the weekend, and Benjamin is particularly sensitive about who tucks him in at night, so I wanted him to be with someone he was comfortable with.  So it was really comforting to have my mom there to take care of the kids over the weekend while Mark was performing.  She just stayed a few days, and then Mark had his first long-term adventure as a solo dad for two kids for Monday - Friday.  They did incredibly!  So good, in fact, that I'm looking for another opportunity to take a second trip to Dubai maybe this spring...

But beyond the timing (thanks, also, HSO, for giving Mark a personal day on Tuesday, so that we again, would not have to find a nighttime babysitter for the kids), the trip was pivotal for a few other reasons.

The first is, I got a taste of being just me again.  Not the me that has two kids, is always trying to figure out how to balance work and home.  Not the me that constantly deals with anxiety in regards to parenting (after a week off, I realize how anxious I truly am).  Not the OCD me that wants the house to always be in order (please note that this does not mean the house IS always in order...far from it).  Not the me worried about losing weight (gave up on this idea since I had much less control over the food for the week --- interestingly enough, I did not gain any weight over the trip despite having starbucks and full-sugar soda every day over the course of the trip).

I felt like I  got to experience a few days back in time.  I just had to just worry about myself for a week.  And funny enough, even though this trip included a lot of "new" for me --- I traveled by myself to a part of the world I know little/nothing about (and I am NOT a seasoned traveler, and get lost very easily).  I hardly knew anyone I was meeting at the office I was visiting.  And I wasn't really sure what I was actually supposed to accomplish during my trip.  But despite all this, I felt so light all week.  I just had to get myself to the shipyard (more about what I was actually doing later) every day, figure out where to eat breakfast and dinner, and figure out how to make the most of my time with my colleagues and "accomplish" what I was supposed to for the trip.  And to boot, I even ventured out (on my own --- again, pretty big for me) for a couple of tourist excursions. 

So despite some jitters on the traveling/being on my own, and working long days --- 11-12 hours each day (which is particularly long for someone who usually only works 20-30 hours per week), the week felt so light and carefree to me.  So very simple.  Which is cool, because my trip to Milan seemed so stressful to me 6 years ago.  I suppose that's one way having kids has changed me.  When it's just me, "what's the worst that could happen" doesn't seem too bad.  When it's my kids, the "worst case" always terrifies me.

So just getting to be just me, the professional me, was really fun and refreshing.  It felt good to re-prove myself to my colleagues (our project manager was there for one day with me).  The people I work with right now only have known me since I've worked part time, so I'm always struggling with doing less than everyone else, because, well, I'm part time.  So to work hard every day, churning out work, felt good.  I felt like I proved that I don't do less because I'm lazy.  I do less because that's the choice I've made to balance out my family.  But given the opportunity, I can still keep up with the rest. :)



And in the end, I did get a lot of job knowledge out of the trip.  I got to know my colleagues that I had never met face-to-face, but with whom I trade daily emails and have early morning teleconferences.  I got to build relationships with them, but more importantly, understand what they deal with every day.  I got some of the data I needed to progress my work.  I got an incredible tour of the shipyard (more on this later).  So while I approached the trip not knowing exactly what I was supposed to do, I left with a feeling of accomplishment.  And that just felt really good.

The second reason this trip ended up being so impactful (is that a word, looks like spell check says it's not, but I'm going to keep it anyways), is that it made me realize how anxious I normally am.  Because while I was dealing with some anxiety from just traveling/being somewhere new, it was a more superficial anxiety --- and it was exhilarating to be able to overcome it.

I was really proud of myself for venturing out on my tourist excursions.  Because I had every excuse not to --- I was jetlagged, exhausted from a long day at the shipyard, all alone and did not know my way around the city.

But I made the conscious decision to take in the experience.  Who knows if I'll ever get to see the middle east again.  I didn't want to miss out on this experience.  So after I got back to the hotel, I dragged myself out again to see what I could experience at 8 PM in Dubai.  And I'm so glad I did.  A small part because I got to see a little bit of a different part of the world.  But mostly because I did it on my own.

But again, back to the "revelation" --- I spend a lot of my day normally worried about what I am going to get done that day --- how I am going to balance the demands at work and the demands at home.  And I spend a LOT of time worrying about my kids.  Are they okay?  Will they be okay?  But mostly I focus on the question: will what I am doing make them okay or not okay?  And there's no way to know.  I want re-assurance that it all turns out okay in the end.  And it brings on a lot of guilt.

I don't really know what to do with this knowledge.  It's something that I've been somewhat aware of for a while now.  But having a week off from those worries made me realize how constant the anxiety really is.  So I feel a need to focus more on dealing with it.  But I also feel a need to get to more often get a break from it.  Because there are the ideals I hold in parenting, and then there is the reality of parenting.

I'm happier when I work more.  Does that mean I should work 12 hour days?  No.  But it also means that maybe I should let go of the guilt, and hire a babysitter or nanny more often so that I can spend time on the other areas of my life that fill me up.  While I would like to be the mom always accessible to her kids outside of the 6 hours per day that they are in school, I'm not sure that makes me the best mom for them.  A few more hours with a babysitter traded for a less anxious mom?  That's probably a better deal.  Or perhaps the answer is finding a nanny who can take care of the kids at night so that I can take the opportunity to travel more.

Like I said, I don't know the answer.  But I also don't want to just go back to how things were.  I know that I can't be perfectly happy and carefree now --- raising young children is hard.  The hardest thing I've ever done.  And I don't want to trade out the long-term well being of my kids for current happiness.  But I also think that I can be happier and more fulfilled than I have been, which in turn is better for my kids than simply logging the hours in with them.

I think that's all I really wanted to say.

But now --- on to the purpose of my trip...

So I am currently working cost / schedule for my project --- which is turning two ships into marine well containment vessels.  It's a joint venture project between the oil majors, which is the industry's response to the big BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2010.  The ships that we are modifying are in a shipyard in Dubai --- and just began modifications in mid-December.

So I went out to meet with the site team to get better aligned with my counterparts --- both within in my company, as well as the contractor in the shipyard.

While I was there, I got an incredible tour of the shipyard and our ship.  The tour of the shipyard was on...bike!  In fact, that's how everybody gets around the shipyard.  It was really cool to be biking around to check out the different parts of the shipyard.  We shared the roads with people walking, other bikers, cars/trucks and machines.  A different reality, for sure!

Then I got a tour of the ship itself.  I even got to climb down manholes on ladders to check out the inside of the vessels.  Made me realize that I'm a bit nervous about heights.  But again, proud of myself for doing it --- who knows the next time I'll be able to climb down into the hull of a ship?!

So, thank you, Dubai for such an incredible experience! 

By the way, apparently when Benjamin grows up, he's going to come work with me, and we're going to go to Dubai together.  Just he and me. And while I was gone, he made a "welcome home mom, I love you" sign at school.  And he pasted together an UAE flag.  Which I just ADORE.  He's been really interested in Dubai.  It's pretty cool.  And Katie says "Dubai" in the cutest way imaginable.