Mr. and Ms. Road Warrior

I’ve been circling the globe these past months with my husband. Indeed, it was our multiple journeys which led to my idea to begin this blog.

Let’s face it, I sound desperate: following him from one place to the next, living large in his Business Class style, and acting like there might not be a tomorrow. (I thought seriously that this could become a reality when we recently rode the local bus from the mountains down to the coast in Vietnam, vehicle perched precariously on the edge of the narrow road, and driver chatting away on his cell phone.)  

My Facebook friends are absolutely justified in wanting to wipe the smile off my face as I peer out from a tub full of hot mud, from over a cool beer, or just grinning from ear to ear as I do in this picture of the happy couple:

I mean, who wouldn’t be smiling? And if I wasn’t happy each and every day about Rodney inviting me along—even if the ground rules have shifted and I find myself working alongside him in my role as corporate communications consultant for his company—then I should be shot, literally, for ingratitude.

I was a road warrior in my own right, though, long before I hitched myself to my husband’s star. Facebook had not been invented when I started schlepping myself and my books hither and yonder, on my own, with no first class hotels and definitely no business class seats.

Of course, those were the days when no one, not even my neighbours and especially my close family, really understood what I did. I appeared from time to time in the coffee shop in my neighbourhood on my way to my local library where I had to specifically mention, “I wrote books.” It just happened that not any of those books were read in Canada or at least by anyone related to me.

Before my business trips, like a two-week, five-city, thirty-five lecture tour of India as the ExpatExpert, one of my siblings would typically tell me cheerily to have a “nice holiday.” Another wouldn’t even bother asking coming or going (and still doesn’t for that matter). And yet another, while thankfully more interested then and now, seems to think my real travel only began once I started to accompany my husband.

For his part, Mr. Road Warrior claims to be happy to have me along after almost thirty years of business travel without me. And that’s despite my ups and downs (that would be my moods over my writing); insomnia (he has trouble sleeping now thanks to me) and of course my constant expressions of guilt over the ridiculous richness of my experiences with him.

Having me along, he told me the other night, beats returning to an empty hotel room after a long day of meetings, grabbing a shower and a quick bite to eat, and then playing iPad Scrabble until nodding off.

It’s nice to know I am appreciated. I already know I'm loved. Why else would he travel with me?