WHILE SITTING AT the airport waiting for my flight to the Maldives, I open my Instagram and quietly write #momguiltisreal. For a beach person who has spent the last two years of the pandemic in the mountains, Maldives was an exciting start. Only in this case, the feeling was diluted with the guilt of leaving behind a two-year-old at home for the first time. After I get back, I should take her somewhere, I think to myself.
After a two-hour