Business Trips 2.0

In the past 10 days I was in Linz, Klagenfurt and Innsbruck for business. This week, I will be in Graz for a day. I have travelled more for business recently than I did in the past 7 years and it's like a less glamorous, more environmentally friendly version of my business travels with the Firm which I LOVED and lived for. Goodbye planes and 5* designer hotels, hello trains and staying at my parents' or Highflyer's Innsbruck home (in all fairness, I could have stayed in hotels there, but chose not to for obvious reasons). I still appreciate the change of scenery and have mostly resigned myself to the fact that even if I still had my old job, there probably would be less travelling and more videoconferencing these days, which is only sensible. After all, it's good to have fond memories and my fondest work-related ones are of these business trips that always had a bit of an exciting vacation element to it. At the same time, I wasn't exactly happy most of that time and spent many hours in hotel rooms obsessing over the cryptic texts of guys not worthy of my attention. While it's good not to get stuck on negative things that happened years ago, it's not fair to completely gloss over them and romanticise the past. I'll gladly swap fancy hotels for emotional stability and contentment.

Calm. Hopefully not Before the Storm...

I was able to combine a business commitment in Klagenfurt with a visit to my parents and am writing this from their house. My Mum has recovered from her broken arm and its aftermath and even though both my parents currently have a fierce cold they are comparatively well and I am mostly in my old role of  (spoilt) "child" (if with the footnote "to aging parents") after a summer of role reversal. It feels deceivingly normal, but I am almost afraid I'll jinx it if I say this out loud. Let's put it like this: I am happy about the status quo, but mentally prepared to switch into caretaker-mode again.