The decision to go to Paris was easy, telling my husband and daughters decidedly less so.
“What do you mean you want to go to Paris by yourself? Is it a work trip or something?” my husband asked. “Can we come too? We’ll be really good – promise,” my daughters added.
No, I told them. I was going to Paris by myself for no reason other than I wanted to, and I was going to spend my days with no real plans, only an intention to walk, eat and see what happens next.
A confused look spread across all three faces – the kind of expression that reads: Mum’s gone off the rails and we probably shouldn’t say anything to spook her right now – and there it stayed until I waved a cheerful au revoir from the wound-down window of a taxi.
Mum actually doing something just for herself? What on earth is the world coming to?
They say Paris is always a good idea – and oh, how it was. For days I wandered the streets, eating Nutella crepes as I walked along the Seine, drinking coffees in Jardin des Tuileries and people-watching in bistros. I woke up late, took long baths and tried on all the clothes in whichever boutique took my eye.
Paris is a feast for the senses, sure, but one of the things I loved most was the silence. Well, the silence and the space to be me. Not the version of myself that other people know – me as a mother or me as a friend or even a work colleague, but the same me who wore silver docs for years in a row and spent long afternoons lazing around in the grass and making pictures from the clouds above.
During those days, for the first time in close to 20 years, no one wanted anything from me. No one could talk to me or touch me or make demands on my time. It was the first time, I realised, that I had done something that served only me since the day I met the man who would become my husband and the father of my children.
As a child of the 80s, I feel like mothers today have received a pretty raw deal. When I was a kid, it wasn’t unusual to leave your kid in a parked car with a bag of salt and vinegar chips and call it ‘babysitting’ or let your kids run riot on the streets on their BMXs while you took a nap.
Paris is always a good idea. Source: Supplied
Today, there’s pressure to be all the right things: a perfect mother, a doting wife and a friend with zero failings. Holidays, too, involve endless compromise with the mother more often than not putting everyone else’s needs before her own. Even a holiday with a friend will mean changing the way you’d like to do things to suit the person you love.
As a travel journalist, I’m always on the road for work, but even if I’m flying solo, I’m usually on somebody else’s schedule. And while my photos might show me on enticing beaches, resorts and luxury transport, they don’t show the back-to-back site visits, hosted dinners and the long nights of typing away as you observe other people enjoying a real holiday. I’m not complaining – it’s a wonderful way to make a living (and as a kid who never got to go on holiday anywhere, I’m still in awe that I get to travel at all).
But it’s not a true, selfish holiday.
After Paris, a holiday I took in late 2019, I came home a different person. I felt joyful, rejuvenated and about half my age. I found I was a more attentive mother (I even volunteered to run the cake stall at my daughter’s school fair), and my husband said it felt like we had just started dating again.
The occasional solo holiday, I realised, agreed with me – so much so that I’ve since implemented a bi-annual solo holiday into my annual plans, which I'm looking forward to finally kick off after the two-year pandemic travel break. With prices going up the way they are, it may not be Paris for some time yet, but it could be Kangaroo Island or a cheapie in the Blue Mountains.
The point? To take time out from being something to everyone else and remember who I really am, plus reflect on the person I want to be when I get back. A true holiday if I’ve ever recognised one.
