The road is only glamorous to people who don’t do it.
In and out of hotels and busses and vans and planes and green rooms. Hurry hurry hurry. Wait wait wait. Dinner is late. And lunch was too early. Sleep bows to the schedule. And the schedule doesn’t think you need much sleep.
You get to see the skyline of the city and the inside of the venue before leaving for the next city. Even good hotels can do a great job of reminding you you’re not in the comfort of your own home.
There’s no downtime until there’s lots of downtime but the downtime never happens in the place you hoped it would. It’s working 24 hours a day…even while you sleep you’re in work mode.
Yes, the road is only glamorous to the people who don’t do it.
So how can any of us put up with it?
Because we don’t look for it to be glamorous. That notion was played to rest long ago.
We put up with all of the above not in hopes of glamour but in expectation of meaningfulness. And in the long run our desire for meaning trumps our desire for glamour.
If the road was ever glamorous, it stopped being that way a long time ago. But life on the road can be meaningful from day one and keep on being that way forever. The connections build, the relationships deepen, new things are discovered…the ups and downs of life played out while going from city to city.
The road isn’t glamorous but it is meaningful.
