It returned to me slowly, somewhere between the long plane ride and the first deep breaths of cold mountain air as I arrived at an Austrian ski resort. Some kind of baseline of the person I used to be when I was on my own.
I checked into my hotel, at the foot of the chairlifts; they said my room wasn’t ready, but that I was welcome to swim. And swim I did, alone in the hotel’s silent, heated indoor pool, with tiles that made me feel a bit like a mermaid in an underwater grotto.
I did my quiet laps, and watched the snow fall out the window, and remembered what it used to be like to do things at my own whim. Get into the pool when I wanted. Get out of the pool when I wanted. Shower when I wanted.
Motherhood has a way of chewing you up and spitting you back out into a place where your wants and needs suddenly become very, very distant.
Old lifetimes disappear into a place that no longer seems to matter, overtaken by things like daycare illnesses and googling ‘when to toilet train’ and battling a two-year-old that needs to eat his 794th yogurt pouch of the day.
When a 10-day solo trip to Europe was offered up, it seemed impossible to agree. It would be logistically tricky. Overindulgent. I asked my mum’s group if they would go, and almost all of them said no; ‘but don’t let that stop you’, they added, as though it softened the blow.
My partner was the one who insisted. It was once-in-a-lifetime, he said. And important for work. And this is what convinced me, in the end, as I kissed goodbye to my toddler at the airport; my job is part of who I am.
As are the mountains I returned to.
Here’s what I took away from the experience.
The kid/s will be just fine
Full of doubt before boarding the flight, I got CoPilot to write me a list of affirmations. Then I set them as the wallpaper of my phone so that my brain (which has become significantly more forgetful since having a small child) could attempt to retain them. This included things like:
Darcy is not losing anything in your absence! He’s gaining extra dad time and fun grandparent novelty!
Toddlers thrive on the familiar! Their normal environment is their recipe for security! He probably wouldn’t even like the plane ride (well, not after the first ten minutes, and definitely not for the remaining 14 hours).
He won’t remember the separation the way you do because his sense of time is different! He lives in the now! Not in the oh-mum-hasn’t-been-here-for-seven-days, what-a-bitch.
And the most important one:
He is safe. He is loved. He is cared for. I am allowed to go.
And you know what? For all their flaws, the AI robots were bloody right. He was fine. I was fine. My partner was fine (helped very much by the grocery shopping and meal prepping I did before I left).
Having been back now for several weeks, the toddler seems exactly the same as he did before I left: fond of me, annoyed by me and enraged by me in almost equal parts.
Guilt is (kind of) pointless
Because mum guilt is a manufactured construct from a society that wants us to expect so, so much more of ourselves than is ever possible to give. On my first ski day, I realised that I could spend my trip feeling bad… or I could give up on the idea of feeling bad, choose to make the absolute most of the circumstances in front of me, and show up back home ready to give my best self right back to my family.
And while I was ready for everyone to judge me along the way, it feels like no one did. Or maybe they did so, but silently, which is just fine by me.
Every time I confessed to someone on the trip that I’d left a two-year-old at home — tour guides, colleagues, random waitstaff at restaurants — they just seemed kind of proud of me. Because ultimately they know, mums who self-sacrifice every want and need are the ones who end up the unhappiest.
And you know the saying: fill your own oxygen mask up first. Preferably by checking yourself into a hotel with a spa and sauna kind of set-up.
The mountains are the perfect place for a solo trip
I’ve spent many hours of my life talking to the mountains, seeking their wisdom in the same way so many people look to the sky for answers. And standing among the 9000-foot-high peaks of the Arlberg was a fast way to make me remember that I am not just a toddler’s snack bitch, or the person who remembers that we need to get bin bags in the next Woolies order. Because: perspective. And the naturally meditative state you enter into when you take off from the chairlift and can’t really think about much else beyond the next turn you’re taking down the mountain.
There are also many other perks that come with a ski trip . It’s very easy to make friends, because you have a captive audience on the chairlift, and all of you have something in common in loving the mountains. (This is where I really recommend Austria; I was offered schnapps from strangers more times than I even thought possible, and often before midday. Very friendly bunch.)
There are endless activities should you need distraction from feeling bad about leaving your child/ren at home: winter hiking, snowmobiling, ice climbing, shopping, sightseeing, the list goes on. Or if you just want to sit at a bar with a good book, there’s really no better place to do so than fireside at a cosy slopeside après bar.
It’s so, so incredibly important
I caught up on sleep. I remembered how to eat meals slowly, without the urgency of small hands trying to steal it, or demanding I do something else. My nervous system did something that felt like healing. I returned home almost insufferable with inner peace.
And sometimes that’s the best thing we can do for our families. Step away for a moment. Return to a place that re-centres us in the best way possible. Return to ourselves. Come back all whole again. And, you know, ready to order the bin bags and the 795th yogurt pouch.
Nat was a guest of Austria Tourism and stayed at Hotel Gotthard in Lech, which she very much recommends if you too need to remember who you are as a person.
Would you – or have you – taken a solo trip away from your little ones?
