Let me start by saying that as a Boston resident, I am very lucky that my family and friends were not physically harmed in the recent marathon bombings. I'm also very appreciative and understanding of the fact that although I travel more than the average mom, I don't travel as much as some other working moms out there.

However, we live seven blocks from where the marathon bombings took place and walk through that block almost daily. After passing through area earlier that morning, I had a quick conversation with our nanny about taking our son to the marathon and then hopped into a taxi to the airport for meetings in Atlanta.

I landed one hour after the bombs went off, turned my phone on and received a text from my husband saying “Don’t worry when you hear the news about the marathon, we are all fine and home” and then saw the Boston.com alert about the bombings. I managed to talk to my sister and husband briefly before cell phone service was cut off in Boston. At this point, I felt so cut off myself from my family and the decisions they were making about staying at home for the night, going outside the next day and what to tell or not tell my son.

On top of that, I then had to smile and try to remove those crazy thoughts and the massive guilt inside of me and attend my meetings. As a working mom, the guilt of travel is already difficult enough on an average day, but it has never been harder than on this day. Everyone kept saying that I was lucky to be out of the city but all I wanted was to be with my family in the city and hugging them regardless of work requirements.

As I sat through meetings that evening and the next day while checking the news constantly, I thought about the terror at home and the pressure on my husband as I repeatedly checked in. I couldn’t help feeling like a bad mom for not being with my son and for being far away at work. I pride myself on being pretty good at multi-tasking and compartmentalizing because you must have those qualities as a working mom, but it was impossible that day. It was hard to focus, and impossible to sleep at night and not jump on an earlier plane home. I thought about traveling when my son is older and something like this happening. What would he think with mom away working?

Regardless of our desire as working moms to achieve balance or have it all, there is no way to not question your decisions and rethink everything you have thought about numerous times before when encountering situations like this. Hopefully, we don’t have to experience events like this many times in life and it doesn’t make you question too much, but I try to remember and keep in perspective the reasons that I’ve chosen to do what I do.

I think about how much easier travel is with today’s technology. Specifically on a day like this, with this tragic event, I don’t know how I would have traveled for work or handled the situation without the technology of today – FaceTime, Skype, cell phone that is with me at all times and email and IM… I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad sign that my son says “Can I FaceTime” when I’m traveling but these types of tools make traveling so much better. I certainly don’t know how others got on so many planes or trains and spent many nights away years ago without this type of technology and with just a few pay phones in airports and on random streets.

For the most part – in normal times and on normal days – this technology allows me to work and be a mom, put energy into both regardless of my location, not miss out on too much and have the most of each world I live in. I hope that my son understands this and sees the value of this when he is older.

Post and thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr user Mark Hillary. http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/2955330529/