Welcome to September’s installment of a new series I’m piloting, Craving//Connecting, where each month I examine a topic I’m currently craving or connecting with. August’s theme was writing, in honor of publishing online for one whole year. September’s theme is travel, in honor of me writing this blurb standing in line to board a connecting flight at Chicago Midway airport1. My hope for this series is to not only pause and reflect on recurring themes in my own life, but to encourage you to do the same. I’d love to know, what are you connecting with this month? What are you craving more of?
It’s 7:00 am and I’m suspended somewhere over New Hampshire, making my way home from a quick trip to Boston with my sister in law. Notice how I said trip and not vacation. Yesterday alone we walked nearly 17,000 steps and 7.5 miles—this was no vacation. But tired feet and tired eyes aside, I’m coming home feeling more rejuvenated than when I left.
Growing up, my mom had a fear of flying (a fear I’m proud to say she has recently conquered), which meant all of our vacations were road trips. This didn’t preclude us from traveling, though— we drove all around the United States. And I do mean all around.
In first grade, we took a road trip from Fort Worth, Texas to Dresden, Ohio. On the way, my mom had to make a quick little pit stop in Maryland for work, so we traveled up the east coast before heading for The Buckeye State.
In sixth grade, my mom had to travel for work again, this time to Las Vegas, so her, my dad, and my sister, as well as my grandparents, loaded up and headed out. I stayed behind with family friends because I couldn’t miss the amount of school a road trip to Vegas required, but I lived vicariously through their adventures.
Despite these outliers, our vacations mostly involved road trips to the Texas Hill Country, a recurring ski trip to Young Life’s Trail West family camp in Buena Vista, Colorado, and a spring break trip with family friends to Destin, Florida. These are the travel memories of my youth, these road trips we took year after year. Or in the case of the Hill Country, month after month.
Once again, my mom’s job was the impetus for our recurrent Hill Country road trips, as her sales territory included San Antonio and surrounding cities. Rather than make the trip alone, because my grandparents had a time share in New Braunfels, she would bring the family along to make a getaway out of these work trips as often as she could. We made these voyages so often that even still, despite taking I-35 back and forth between Fort Worth and Houston for the four years we lived there, not to mention countless other trips we’ve taken down south, I will always associate the stretch of highway between Fort Worth and San Marcos with my childhood. It feels as familiar to me as the back of my hand.
As for our ski trips and beach trips, they weren’t quite annual, but did take place regularly between fifth grade and my early college years. The most memorable occurred my senior year, when we were not planning on attending that year’s ski trip, but all of our friends were. At dinner with some of these friends the night before the trip, they convinced2 my fly by the seat of her pants mother that we should just go. So that evening, we went home and packed our entire family of four up for a ski trip to Colorado and the next morning, we just went.
These days, my approach to travel is a little different than that with which I grew up. There are no cross country road trips and no one would accuse me of being a spontaneous traveler. When I married Luke, we combined very different travel backgrounds. My “we can drive anywhere and just make a plan when we get there” meshed with his “my dad is a pilot so I grew up exploring the world with hour by hour itineraries and I never met an airport I didn’t recognize.” We have melded our histories and come up with our own travel culture, which involves a decent amount of domestic travel, a handful of international trips, and lots of road time in between, as our lives have been spread out between Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, and Houston throughout our marriage.
When we travel together, it brings us back to who we are as a couple. The obligations of real life often leave us run down and worn out; travel rejuvenates and revives us. Exploring new places together bonds us and gives us joint experiences to share that a date night at home just can’t replicate.
Last April, I met Luke at the tail end of one of his work trips in California and we spent a few days in one of our favorite places, sipping wine and wandering through the Red Wood Forest. It was one of the most restorative trips of our marriage because while it wasn’t the first time we left our daughter, it was the first time I left her without having major anxiety the whole time. Anxiety’s absence made space for us to feel like us again.
While travel has always been a shared value, it was that trip to California which made me realize how important it is to prioritize it now that we are parents. Early in our marriage, we were quite the jet setters. Cabo. Napa. New York City. There was always a trip on the horizon. These days, our trips are fewer and farer between, but when we can make them happen, they are life giving. Sure, they don’t always look like they used to, but it’s amazing how a simple change of scenery makes such a profound impact on relationships. Not just on our marriage relationship, but on my relationship with myself, as well.
This trip to Boston, while not relaxing by any means, has been restoring on a soul level. Being able to wander around a new city in beautiful weather for a few days was like a reset for my heart and mind. While I’m dog tired and still somehow have to host a birthday party on Saturday, I feel more like myself than I did before I left.
Sure, I had to lay out four days’ worth of outfits for my daughter, label all of her backup clothes, make a secondary car line sign to accommodate the carpool shuffle that will take place upon my return, and pack her bags for dance, school, and BSF while also packing my own bags. And yes, I left the morning after her birthday and on the cusp of her first full week of school, missed my first week of BSF, and her first homework assignment. It wasn’t all smooth sailing making it happen.
I almost let all of these things keep me from going, but I’m so glad I didn’t. While they were all barriers, the combined forces of Luke, my parents, and my in-laws held down the fort while I was gone. The power of FaceTime allowed me to take part in said homework assignment. Luke learned how to do ponytails. My dad got to observe dance class. My mother-in-law was able to take my daughter to BSF, allowing them both to keep their normal schedules. Our world didn’t fall apart in my absence.
Meanwhile, I soaked in American history wandering the Freedom Trail. My heart raced perusing the shelves of Beacon Hill Books and then melted applauding Pharmacist Mate 1st Class Phyllis Gallant, clad in her World War II uniform on the field of a Red Sox game. I hugged the neck of an old friend in the town she’s called home for so many years. I gorged myself on clam chowder and oysters and lobster rolls and fusilli alla vodka. I didn’t make a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich or listen to “Let It Go” even once.
Over the course of two and a half days I experienced glimmers3 over and over again and I’ll use them to fuel me for the days and weeks to come. Don’t get me wrong, I have other glimmers in my day to day life, but there’s something extraordinary about the ones you experience away from home. They soften the edges of real life.
I hope it goes without saying that this is all descriptive and not prescriptive—travel is a luxury, whether by car, by boat, or by plane. I’m not suggesting you or I skip town anytime life gets us down or we need to recenter. Rather, I’m expressing gratitude for the opportunity to explore new places, for family who keeps our world spinning when I’m gone (even though I know they will now need a vacation), and for not letting anxiety hold me back.
I’m writing this as a reminder to myself that travel is one tool in my arsenal of ways to connect with the world, my travel mates, and myself. I’m also writing this as an ode to all the jobs held by mom and my husband which have made these trips possible—it’s rather astounding how many work trips I have been the beneficiary of for never having taken one for myself. This is also a plug for having a great travel credit card.
S/O to Substack for the ability to draft posts from your phone.
I’m not sure she took much convincing.
If you aren’t familiar with glimmers, they “refer to small moments when our biology is in a place of connection or regulation, which cues our nervous system to feel safe or calm”, according to this USA Today article. Place of connection. Yes, please.
This is beautiful, Kelsey! Loved reading about your beautiful childhood memories and your recent adventures. Sometimes the memory of a trip is just as good as the experience of the trip itself.