Make the Time, Take the Trip

by Ashley Hertzog Embry

I just returned from a month-long cross-country road trip with my 72-year-old mom. It was six years overdue and not a moment too soon. In late 2019 we talked about taking this trip in 2020, but the pandemic pandemicked all over those plans. We thought the next year might work better, but it kept right on pandemickin’! Time passed, and we thought the opportunity had, too.

Last fall I told my husband that I might want to take a sabbatical in a few years, and maybe during that time I’d finally take my mom on that road trip we’d postponed. He said, “I think that’s a great idea, but don’t wait on the road trip.” And I knew in my gut he was right. She is not getting any younger, and there are no guarantees in life; I already lost my dad thirteen years ago.

I sat down with my boss last November and proposed an unpaid leave of absence for this summer. “I’m not leaving,” I told him, “but I’d like some extended time off.” We talked through the logistics, and he was highly encouraging of this proposal. Experiencing some sudden shifts in his own parents’ health and aging gave him extra empathy for the importance of my travel plans.

So, I spent every spare moment of this spring essentially planning a three-legged month-long tour across America for a mother-daughter duo, with a couple of supporting acts (my husband and daughter) who would join halfway through. A few challenges to consider included a mother who isn’t exactly a “light packer,” and doesn’t do airplanes, heights, elevators, parking garages, or load-ins and load-outs. But I rose to the challenge, carefully considered every detail I could anticipate, and crafted the itinerary for our Road Trip of A Lifetime. I created an eleven-hour playlist that followed our route around the country. My husband installed a dash-cam system at my request to capture our journey. I packed 10 days in advance. And I teed up my staff to handle all necessary business in my absence, so I could actually check out of work mode.

All of that planning paid off. My goal was to have an itinerary so clear—not rigid, but with plenty of details and options already researched—that all I had to do was show up and execute. And that’s what I did. Our days were full, of course, and we had plenty to keep us busy at each of our 20 stops over the next 30 days. But something amazing happened when I fully disconnected from career mode for that long.

My brain found elbow room.

I know that’s not anatomically correct, but it feels like the best description. In my typical days, my brain feels crowded with too much information and too many loose ends to hang onto. Too much noise. Too many responsibilities. Too many appointments. Too many emails. Too much traffic. Too many buildings. Too many cars. Too many demands. There’s no room to breathe, and no stillness on purpose. The only stillness I ever encounter is when I finally collapse at the end of my days—more out of exhaustion than intentionality.

But on this trip, I found stillness. We were on the move most of the time, (my daily step count 75-100% higher than my average workdays even on long days of driving), but my essence stilled. My nervous system settled. My mind quieted. My body exhaled. I felt like a human being, instead of a human doing.

No longer a cog in a machine, just a person traveling through the most gorgeous spaces our country has to offer with the woman who not only gave me life but gave me a love of road trips. We enjoyed unhurried conversations, excited observations. Thousands of photos snapped, memories made permanent through the magic of a shutter button. Tears shed at the sight of the Grand Canyon, or the sun dipping behind Sedona’s natural skyline. Laughs shared from the front row of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Songs sung in unison with matching hand gestures. Memories recalled from our road trips 30 years ago. Full circle moments we could never have planned.

But here’s the interesting part:  It was more than a week into this trip, and nearly two weeks away from the office before I felt that sacred release. Historically, I’ve never taken more than a week’s vacation at a time, and I’d venture a guess that you haven’t either. I recognize it was a luxury that I was able to take this extended leave and make such an epic trip happen during my time away. However, I can’t help but wonder how deeply we might be changed if we could normalize taking vacations long enough to effectively reset our nervous systems.

When I asked my boss for this time off, even though he was encouraging, I felt guilty. It was a want, after all. No one mandated this trip. It wasn’t something I couldn’t have rescheduled for some other month, or year, or season of life entirely. It felt indulgent and extravagant. But in hindsight, it wasn’t a want after all. It was a need so deep that I couldn’t even see it beneath the layers of my performance as a “responsible grownup.”

So often we’re sucked into the vortex of daily life logistics, and even when it’s a beautiful life you’ve built, it can overwhelm you. We sneak our “mental health” breaks in bite-size servings. A yoga class here, an afternoon with a good book there, therapy on our lunch breaks, and a healthy boundary that we stick to (on a good day.) But sometimes we need more than a bite. Sometimes we need an all-you-can-eat buffet of downtime and headspace and deadline detox.

If you need the reminder that we are more than our work, if you’ve been waiting for a permission slip to go live your life, here it is: Grab a plate (or three) and fill up on what you really need. Feed your soul what it hungers for. Make the time. Take the trip.

I’ll leave you with a poem by Joy Sullivan from Instructions for Traveling West:

In The Office

We wear thin armor, as if approaching war

During a meeting, a man explains

why his ideas are good, perhaps brilliant.

The days rifle past, full of paper cuts, nerves,

and filing cabinets. The copier, a monstrosity,

glares in the corner and waits to break. In the lobby,

there is enough sugar to kill a horse. At the company

party, the receptionist gets drunk and begins

to weep. We sneak our joy in slices—

on holidays and weekends, sandwiched between calendars and PTO.

Vacations smear at the edges. Traffic eats us

like ants. Work-life balance, someone

says. Outside, our lives ring, unanswered.