1. Woman feels nagging lower back pain and assumes it’s due to small children who want to be picked up, gardening, constant puttering.

2. Woman ignores symptoms.

3. Woman goes about daily life.

4. Woman wakes up one day feeling like she has pinched a nerve. She promptly ignores it.

5. Woman goes to work one Monday for client meeting. She and client both joke about respective back pains. Likely due to planting flowers, they are sure.

6. Woman begins to look exceedingly more like question mark over the course of the day, using chair backs as props to straighten up after meetings.

7. Woman drives home in her husband’s car, which she curses to the gods for being so low to the ground that it takes her ten minutes to get out. Woman curses husband for being away helping wonderful friends prepare to bring home adopted baby, and then staying with other friends in the area, leaving her to manage small children’s bedtimes while in aforementioned question-mark pose, now complete with spasms. Woman realizes she is an asshole.

8. Woman gets children to bed (the crib was a story in itself), and still in denial, goes to bed herself.

9. Woman wakes up in the middle of the night. Gets up. Promptly hits ground like sack of potatoes and can’t get up.

10. Woman wriggles around on ground in agony. Heaves herself into bed next to daughter (who still refuses to sleep by herself and woman has no energy for it). Spasms. Screams. Inadvertantly scratches child in face. Child doesn’t even notice. Rolls over and goes to sleep again. Woman thanks god that no children are awake, that dog does not need to pee. Tries to remain as quiet as possible so as not to trigger these events. Prays she does not need to pee.

11. Woman lies in wait for nanny to arrive for work. Tick. Tick. Tick.

12. Nanny arrives. Thank god for nanny. Woman calls doctor. Doctor indicates woman must come in for office visit to be treated. Woman indicates - politely - that doctor does not understand that she CANNOT BLOODY WALK. Conversation ends.

13. Woman contemplates fact that she has never called 911 before. What will they think? Assumes immediately that they will think she is an idiot and a hypochondriac that is overreacting to trivial injury.

14. Woman finally gets smart. Smacks herself in the head. Sets of spasm. Screams.

15. Woman dials 911. Ambulance comes.

16. Woman’s oldest daughter says “Oh mommy, not a sad face. Make a happy face. A happy face.” Woman cries. Sets of spasm. Screams.

17. EMS man asks woman “I don’t mean to be offensive, but are you always so pale?” Woman acknowledges that, yes, she always looks this way. Laughs. Sets of spasm. Screams.

18. EMS workers strap woman to spinal board, and carry her out of house, giving entire neighborhood great gossip for weeks to come (”What happened?!” “We always knew there was something odd about them!”)

19. Woman arrives in ER. Woman jokes with ER nurses that she would rather have another baby WITHOUT AN EPIDURAL FOR THE LOVE OF ALMIGHTY GOD than to be in this much pain.

20. Woman is given many, many, many drugs. Woman is happier.

21. Woman realizes that what makes her an idiot is that she has not taken care of herself.

22. Woman wonders how they plan to send her home when she still can’t bloody walk, sit, pee. Nurses give her more drugs. With help of husband (now in the ER with her) she hobbles to car.

22. Woman goes home. Lies in bed for 3 days straight. (But has computer next to her so that she can work, so as not to feel out of loop, useless.)

23. Goes to orthopedist. Is told she has almost herniated disc. Cartilage is “bursting” out, hitting a nerve, causing the pain. Prescribes physicial therapy and bed.

24. Woman goes to bed again. Then therapy. Is told her hips are uneven, causing lack of body alignment, which is causing the pressure on the spine, which is causing the cartilage problem.

25. Song comes to mind “the knee bone is connect to the thigh bone, the thigh bone is connected to the…” Woman laughs. Ouch.

26. Woman is mostly mobile again. Laughs at her idiocy, while simultaneously hoping she is smart enough to never ignore the signs again. And is smart enough to take care of herself.

27. All the while, skepicism ramains at her ability to do this, because it seems like a Herculean task. Wonders why it seems so difficult to do the essential things.

28. Woman ponders being juggler.

29. Woman takes more Ibuprofin. Does her stretches. Goes to therapy. Goes back to work.

30. Woman laughs. Because we have to.

When I travel for work I find I am often caught in between guilty-pleasure and just plain guilt. Not because I do anything bad when I travel. There’s no “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” type of thing going on. No, what I find myself battling is the knowledge that I should use this time to my advantage - to write those reports and read those competitive summaries - but all I really want to so is have a glass of wine and completely zone out for the entire duration of the flight.

You know, that mental place where a millions thoughts may fly through your head, none of them amounting to much of anything. Or better yet, cast myself away in a daydream about being an Olympian (Don’t tell me you’ve never done the same. We’ve all seen Fletch and that’s exactly whey we find it so funny. The truth of the human insight connects with us immediately.)

I mean, how often do you ever get several hours, sometimes more, when no one can reach you? You should use this time to catch up, right?  Hmmm, not so sure. 

“Should” is a powerful word.  What we “should” do is always hanging over us. I could just as easily rationalize that I should do nothing. That I should watch a movie, or listen to music, or daydream, exactly because I never get any time to do these things at home. In the midst of the toddler-dom that reigns supreme over my house, I think the only book that I’ve managed to read in the past 3 years in its entirety is the final installment of Harry Potter. I haven’t seen a movie without pausing several times to get milk or juice, or help a child blow a nose in 4 and a half years.

Yet, trying to rationalize what I should do is never very satisfying, because it always has multiple, conflicting, possibilities as an answer.  I think it should be replaced with what I need. If I evaluate the situation based on what I need more, then the  answer is clearer. What I need is to clear my head. To relax. To rest. I need this more than I need to write that report. Believe me, if I needed to write the report, I would. If it was due tomorrow, or someone was relying on me to deliver a presentation on it when I landed, I would. But, they aren’t. And in order for me to write that report when I need to, and get milk for the loves of my life when I need to, it’s probably more important that I get some much-needed zoning out.

So, as much as I curse you, business travel - for the jet lag and the time away from my family - I also thank you - for a few hours that belong just to me.