I will be sharing in my upcoming blogs some of the more academic things I learned at this week’s ATTACh conference and some of the exciting things in store for the organization that has captured my heart…the Attachment & Trauma Network. But this is about practical lessons learned.

What I Learned on My Trip:

1. Philadelphia is my least favorite city in the entire country. After spending a week there this summer with LuLu (and enduring several meltdowns a day, lots of walking and TONS of noise), I didn’t think I cared for the city that much. After flying through the airport, complete with layovers and plane changes that required that I go through security twice, I’m SURE I don’t care much for the City of Brotherly Love. (Sorry gang, even the yummy cheesesteaks and the great Amish food isn’t enough to make me reconsider.)
2. Don’t ever buy a ticket that requires you to change airlines if you’re going to check a piece of luggage. Your luggage is less adept at changing air carriers (and going through security twice) than you are. It will not arrive when you do. Yes, my luggage got lost both going to Rhode Island and returning home last night. (Happily the man just pulled up to my house with my wayward bag.)
3. Friendships made in cyberspace are REAL friendships. I shudder when people malign the internet as a way to connect with others. I recognize the danger of not being able to see a person and read body language or pick up non-verbal clues about the person’s life. And I worry about teenagers getting involved in some very dangerous things. But for every story of a person being lured into a bad situation by someone they met on the internet, there are countless more who needed to find each other. This is the way I feel both about the readers of this blog and about my many friends on the listserve support groups to which I belong. I was reminded this week that you truly are REAL people, with REAL challenges…just like me!
4. Meeting cyberspace friends IN PERSON is always interesting. I have given up trying to guess what someone looks like from their writing. It’s not possible. I’m always way off of the mental picture I have for people I have not met. Yet, these are people I know quite well in many ways. The people I’ve imagined blonde are always brunette; the ones I’ve imagined petite are sometimes taller than me. Invariably they are older or younger than I’ve imagined too. It was fun to meet at least 10 moms who are ATN members, but whom I’ve only known as email addresses until this week. Now I’ll have the correct mental pictures when they “talk” on-line.
5. Getting away from our stressful lives for a few days is definitely worth it. There were lots of reasons I shouldn’t have gone to the ATTACh conference. LuLu and Super Dad really did need me here. But I’m so glad I went. Doing yoga with Katharine Leslie, laughing ‘til we cried with the ATN gang, and eating dessert just because it was there was so what I needed. Who cares that they lost my luggage both ways, that it rained much of the time we were there, or that I misread my ticket yesterday and sat an extra two hours in the airport. The time away from the normal stressors of my life was magical. And it rejuvenated me.


Artwork credit