Open Post: 'Last week, I ran away from home.' - Mia

And it was pretty heavenly, I have to tell you.

Welcome to Open Post. In case you’re new around here, it’s your weekly chance to tell us what’s been going on in your world.

This week, Mamamia Publisher and Founder Mia Freedman’s telling us about that time she stopped giving a shit…

Last week I ran away from home for a few days.

I haven’t felt the need to do this for a while but last week I really really needed to get away and just be somewhere where I could close the door to wee. Not that you need to do that in a hotel room when you’re ALL ALONE but you know what I mean. Solitude.

It’s something that can be hard to navigate in a marriage and as a mother.

We’re launching our new website Debrief Daily in a couple of weeks and in preparation, I’ve been doing presentations to advertisers and media with our Sales Director, Kylie Rogers.

Here we are in a newspaper article announcing the site’s launch:

The presentations took us to Melbourne for two nights and then Brisbane for an afternoon.

It was pretty heavenly, I have to tell you. On Thursday morning though, after two nights catching up with Melbourne girlfriends Wendy Squires and Virginia Trioli and eating pizza washed down with cocktails (this is always my go-to girlfriend meal), I was ready to come home. On the way back to Sydney from Melbourne, however, I had to go via Brisbane for one more presentation. And lunch with my beloved Bec Sparrow.

This post is an extract from Mia’s weekly newsletter, Things I’d Tell You If We Were Friends. To subscribe, go here. 

I knew I had some time to kill in Brisbane before the presentation so I decided to fly up in tracksuit pants and a t-shirt with no makeup. Time to sort that shit out when I arrived, I thought.

Not so much.

With the conveyor belts broken at Melbourne airport and nobody able to check in their luggage, the flustered airline workers eventually just started shouting, “LEAVE YOUR BAGS OVER HERE” and pointing to a spot in the middle of the terminal. And that’s when 900 stressed travellers who were already running late for their flight did. Some were smarter than me and took photos of their bags or bag tags. I just retrieved my laptop from my suitcase and headed through security, fairly certain I would never see my bag again.

I was remarkably calm about this. And I stayed that way when I landed in Brisbane and my bag was confirmed as being….. somewhere else that wasn’t Brisbane.

I’d already made peace with the idea of presenting to a room full of 100 glamorous Brisbane clients looking like I just rolled out of bed (which I had, plus a couple of hours flying).

The content-slut writer in me thought: THIS WILL BE A GREAT STORY and I honestly just didn’t care. I’m either getting less vain as I get older or more comfortable in my skin or just more lazy.

Maybe all of those things. In my 20s or even 30s, I would have been stressed and embarrassed to have to stand up on a stage looking so shabby. I would have stopped to buy emergency makeup and clothes.

But not this time. Not now. Here I am in the cab on the way to the Powerhouse Museum in Brissie where we presented, coming to terms with my situation:

No shits given.

Kind of appropriate given that a theme of Debrief Daily – and what we were presenting in the research we did into women 40+ – is how women are less worried about what other people think of them as they get older.

My lord, it’s liberating to feel that need for approval start to leak out of your soul.

Not to mention the fact that I got to keep those two glorious hours to see my girlfriend and fill my soul up with our friendship. Just like I had in Melbourne spending time with my other friends. Women are the bloody best.

My suitcase turned up the next day back home. I knew it would. I hadn’t missed it.

This post is part of Mia’s weekly newsletter, Things I’d Tell You If We Were Friends. To get it in your Inbox every week, subscribe here. 

Looking for the chance to win an amazing weekend away? Who isn’t?! Well thanks to TFE Hotels and Velocity Frequent Flyer you have the opportunity to win an ultimate weekend away for you and 11 friends. AND there is also a weekend away for two up for grabs every week until the end of March. To find out more and enter the draw, click here.