Remembering why (the work edition)

I flew. I pumped. I networked. I conquered.

The dreaded first business trip is complete. And honestly? It was great.

H was fine. We had milk to spare. My mother-in-law got some great grandbaby time. I got some great professional time. (T is still waiting for his great relaxation time.) It was good to get away and be out west again. It was good to remember the good work I've done in the past, to get recharged about the good work I'll do in the future.

The truth is, I love my weird corner of the professional universe, maybe especially because I never really meant to call it my own. Given the bubble of DC and my current project, connecting with other folks in my field and learning from other projects is something I need to do more than ever. And of course, in the constant juggling act that is working momhood, it's harder than ever to make it actually happen. Having a reason to go and an excuse to suck it up and make it happen? Critical. I worked on Tucson's streetcar project way back in late 2007/early 2008. These things take time, as we know. Back then I was chasing love much more than the idea that I'd be at the system opening in 2014. I'd only been in Dallas a few months when I worked on that FTA application - T and I were just figuring out how to live together. We'd adopted one cat, maybe two. There was not yet a marriage, a move to DC, a house, infertility, a baby girl. Those things struck me in Tucson last week, seeing this project go live in a cool little town that reminds me in so many ways of the great one I left behind seven years ago. It's funny how things work, because pursuing transit was the professional path that made my choice to leave Albuquerque for Dallas as practical as it was romantic. I miss New Mexico like mad, but the decision was the right one.

All these years later, this streetcar project and I ended up meeting again. That's one of the reasons I love community planning and transit projects - you can always visit. Sometimes we all need a reminder of why we do what we do, why the headaches are worth it, why the unnecessary drama is sometimes just something you need to work through until the smoke clears. Last week refreshed me, and being away from H helped me see the big picture, to be honest. Some day I want her to know that her mom's work matters to her because she believes her projects help make cities better places to live. What I do might not always look exactly like it does today, but I hope that broad definition will still fit. And even if I decide some day to buy that little bookstore I love in the Outer Banks and leave it all behind (note to self: need to inform husband of these plans first), we can visit my projects together, anytime we like: that streetcar a mile away from our house, or the one in Tucson or Dallas or Ft. Lauderdale, the commuter train in New Mexico, or spots scattered around the country that are maybe a little more vibrant than they used to be - the Lehigh Valley, the South Valley, the Piedmont, and more. The thing about this work is, you get to leave your mark.

As for traveling to visit one of those marks, it was a juggle of course, but not as bad as I'd feared. I timed things similarly to my office, found a few breaks in the schedule to steal away solo, had refrigerators in my rooms, traveled with ice, only filled my bags to 100 ML to speed up airport security (which I didn't even need to do, it turned out), and basically just made it work. As we do. The only real wrinkle was just an embarrassing one, and saved for the flight home. Despite verbal warnings insisting otherwise, congregating in the aisles is in fact still rampant on airplanes. I discovered this the hard way after pumping in the tiny airplane bathroom for just ten minutes to take the edge off (having learned my lesson from the flight over - ouch and oops), and exited to find the bathroom line literally running halfway down the plane. Seriously people? Oh, the dirty looks. (Although they might have thanked me when they realized I did no harm in there.) At any rate... at least my freezer woes are no more!