No Place Like Home

I had the good fortune of traveling to Honolulu this past week to kick off a new work engagement.  After the winter we've had on the East Coast, many of my friends and co-workers were totes jelly of such an opportunity.  It is a great gig with fantastic teammates.  I've been going a million miles an hour so some leisure was in order.  And my main meeting was on a Friday afternoon, so the whole trip was just begging for a "make it a weekend" move.

And yet, later that evening, after being on island for a mere 28 hours (of which 17 involved some sort of work-related meeting), I found myself cabbing to the airport to begin my red-eye itinerary back home.  Wait what?

It wasn't because I didn't enjoy my company.  Far from it; my teammates, both the ones I've known and the ones I've only recently gotten to know, are the kind of people you absolutely adore spending time with.  And, obviously, it wasn't for lack of fun things to do or for desire to do fun things.  I mean, hello...Hawaii?!?

My reasons were waiting for me at home when I finally got there 14 hours after departing from a post-meeting team gathering in Waikiki.  Amy and the kids were playing Life, I sidled in next to them to boot up my laptop and catch up on emails, and next thing you knew we were at our neighborhood Lebanese restaurant feasting like kings. 

It occurred to me, mid-dinner, that it was barely noontime on Saturday in Honolulu.  Had I stayed an extra day and "made it a weekend," I'd be less than halfway through a glorious day of sunshine, sand, good food, and great activities.  And yet, weary red-eye flight notwithstanding, I was glad to be where I was, amid a pile of baba ghanouj and the familiar sounds of my wife and our two little minions glad to have their fourth wheel back.  There really is no place like home.  Not even a free day in paradise.

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