Last week, I went to Kuala Lumpur for 48 hours. 

On a practical level, the trip made no sense: My husband was in the U.S., literally as far away from our home in Bangkok as a person could be. We have two adolescent boys. Only once in their lives have I gone out of town when their dad was already gone. And I only allowed myself that trip because a) I’d been invited to the White House, b) it was a work trip and c) I was only going to be a three-hour drive away from my kids.

This trip was none of those things, at least at the outset. 

Beyond childcare, it made no sense because I juggle running this household and focusing on the kids with freelance writing. So any hours I spend not working are hours I’m not getting paid. And on top of it all, I’m working on launching a business and often use the nights when my husband is away to tackle that. Taking an impromptu vacation doesn’t serve any of those goals.

But one of my oldest and best friends had written me to say she’d be in KL on business for just a couple of days, and wasn’t that really close to Bangkok? More than a decade ago, she wrote me a similar message when I lived in Beijing. “I’m going to be in Tokyo for a few days,” she said. 

At the time, I had a new baby. And I had a job. And my husband had to travel unpredictably for work, sometimes to places like Afghanistan or Iraq. It wasn’t a good time, I told her. I couldn’t go.

It’s taken me all the intervening years to realize that if a working mother waits until it’s a good time to take a trip purely for herself, she will never go. 

SHE WILL NEVER GO. 

It’s never a good time. There are never enough spare hours. There are always more reasons to stay home than to go. She’ll always say no. Finally, I’ve become a woman who works around the reasons and finds a way to say yes.

Understand: I’m not suggesting you abandon all responsibility, waste a ton of money and leave your responsibilities blowing in the wind. 

I said yes to the trip first, then I addressed each of the roadblocks (career, budget, childcare, time pressure). I came up with a story I could report from Kuala Lumpur and pitched it to an editor. Once I’d landed that job, I knew it would pay for the airfare and leave me with extra for childcare. Then I asked a friend I trust to watch the kids and offered to pay her a reasonable fee. And to tackle the time pressure, I also made sure I discussed the business I’m launching with the new friend I flew down with (herself the owner of a creative small business) and with the old friend I met up with (a career businesswoman with a ton of experience managing projects).

That’s how I ended up eating fragrant satay with wickedly good dipping sauce at the Shangri-la hotel in Malaysia’s capital last Friday afternoon. And it’s how I ended up sipping a well-mixed “bourbon martini” (which isn’t a real martini, I know) at a rooftop bar on the 57th floor of a building in the Petronas Towers complex, while reveling in the bird’s-eye view you see at the top of this post. 

Everyone’s life has different details. Another woman will have different opportunities, different places she wants to go and different solutions for the roadblocks that could stop her. But for all of us, there are ways to make an impractical opportunities just slightly more practical. You just have to commit first to actually going. Then you labor to figure out how to improve the situation. Once central thread for all of us, though: Asking other women for help and discuss concrete ways to return the favor.

This is my new approach, and I’m determined to make it a regular habit. The best way to build a new habit is to reinforce it, so here goes: I have another friend who is planning a work trip to Nepal next month. She mentioned that she’s up for having a few friends meet her in Katmandu when her work is done and spending maybe a week exploring the Himalayas. 

It’s another wildly impractical time for our family: My husband will again be out of town and the kids will have just finished their spring break. It’ll be time for them to motor through the final quarter of the school year. We’ll have just gotten back from a week in China. Everyone will be tired. I will have already missed some work hours. 

But I’m talking about maybe five days, seven at the most. Yes, I have kids and a job and a business to launch. Yes, the friend I’d be traveling with is in her 20′s, not married and without kids. Of course, she can do this. 

You know what? SO CAN I. 

The chance to go to Nepal isn’t likely to come along again soon, maybe ever. By the end of May, the season of monsoon rains begins, and travelers can easily get stranded or washed down a hill in a mudslide. 

So I’m going to brainstorm stories I can do on our China trip and then in Nepal, to maximize my work hours while traveling. I’m going to find the cheapest flight I can and bust my ass in the intervening weeks to earn a bit extra. And I’m going to work extra hard on business launch and get ahead of schedule. And I will work out childcare with friends, bartering if necessary to help them in ways they need assistance. 

That’s a lot to attempt, but it’s got to happen. Grabbing opportunities for yourself when you’re a working mother isn’t smooth or easy or practical. 

But it’s now or never. 

I pick now.