Vol. 85 - Come Fly with Me, Let's Fly Away

On taking amazing trips, or not.

Jan 17, 2024

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I was recently invited on a press trip that would have taken me to Europe, traveling in business class, to stay in a series of first-class hotels while enjoying a week of amazing outdoor adventures, all expenses paid. Most meals would be covered (and also of the first-class variety) as would have been just about everything else, outside of my own personal expenditures. Sounds like a no brainer, right?

I mean, what kind of a fucking dope says “Thanks but no thanks” to an opportunity like that?

Apparently this kind of a fucking dope. Because that’s exactly what I did.

Let me rewind for a second. Those of you who don’t know me personally may not know that I make my living as a freelance writer. In that role, I write about a ton of different things, one of which is travel. And once you land a byline or two with any of the marquee travel magazines and/or websites, you immediately get inundated by PR firms pitching you to cover this resort or that destination. Most of it goes straight in the trash because most of it doesn’t interest me (and I’m lucky enough to be able to write about only what I want to write about, but that’s a different newsletter). However, sometimes, a pitch is so absurd that I have to at least consider it, at least discuss it with Emily.

And this was one of those trips.

I forwarded the email to Emily, adding nothing more than a question mark to the top, which said without saying, “Can I go?”

Emily responded that she had already made plans to be out of town for most of that week. It was on the family calendar that I frustratingly ignore. We could probably work something out, she said. She always says that. And she means it. But I didn’t want that for her. I wanted her to go on her trip, to enjoy herself without worrying about our kids being at home for a week with a babysitter or a relative, when they haven’t spent more than a night away from both us in their entire lives (and that was only our son and that was only because Emily was delivering our daughter).

So what’s the point of this rambling humblebrag, Mike? you may be wondering. Get to the point.

The point is how one tiny word in my reply to the PR rep made me realize a very real truth about my life at the moment.

“This sounds amazing,” I typed back to the rep. “But my wife is going to be out of town that week and I’ll be stuck home with both of my kids.”

I took a beat and reread the sentence, realizing what an asshole I sounded like (though no bigger an asshole than the guy telling you about how people sometimes offer to fly me to ridiculous places for free) for using the word “stuck.”

Because “stuck” implied a few things.

First and foremost, that I don’t love being home with my kids. I do. In fact, I love it more than most things in my life right now. Is it always rosy? No. We yell. We fight. Our house is a fucking disaster at all times. But being with them is the place I most want to be.

Second, there was an undertone that, by the nature of her being absent, my wife is the one who does all or most of the child rearing around our home. And that’s simply not true. I’m never stuck at home. Rather, I’m home doing my job; being a father. When Emily leaves for a time, I don’t “step up.” When it’s just me and the kids, I’m not a “single dad.” And when I have to have to watch my kids solo, I’m hardly “stuck.” Emily and I chose to have kids. And in doing so, we chose the fact that they would become our priority for the foreseeable future.

Finally, I’m hardly stuck. I’m lucky. Though we don’t have much help around here (if anyone has a grandma or two we could borrow…), Emily and I have the means that could have made this trip work if we really wanted to. There are plenty of people in the world who aren’t so lucky. I’m anything but “stuck.”

And maybe, in a few years, when our kids are a bit older and a bit more independent, I can say yes to these types of experiences more often. But for now, for a million reasons, it’s often just easier for me to say no, to pass on a once-in-a-lifetime trip in order to stay home and be with my kids, to honor the plans Emily had already made (which, to her eternal credit, she offered to cancel and reschedule), and to do my job as a dad.

I deleted the sentence and rephrased it, telling the PR rep that I simply couldn’t make it and thanked her for the absolutely absurd opportunity she thinks my writing is worthy of.