The Promise I Made on a Highway in Maine
Seven years, six trips, and one very important lesson about what actually matters.
She had just finished her first solo girls trip to New York City. My daughter, navigating that city like she already owned it. The apple, as they say, does not fall far from the tree.
I flew up to meet her afterwards and we drove together to Maine. It was the last summer before she left for college and I had done my research.
Acadia National Park.
Lobster rolls eaten standing up, paper napkins, no apologies.
A cliff repelling experience with the Atlantic Ocean stretched out below us and colorful buoys bobbing in the distance like something out of a painting.
We did all of it. And yet… none of it was the best part.
The best part was the drive. We car karaoked every Disney song we had ever sung together, badly and without a single regret. We started The Count of Monte Cristo on audiobook and never once finished it because we could not stop talking.
She told me everything about her trip. I told her everything I had been saving up to say. Somewhere on a stretch of highway in New England, with Edmond Dantès abandoned somewhere in chapter three and a Disney playlist on repeat, I made myself a quiet promise.
No matter what season of life we were in, no matter how far apart we lived or how busy things got, we would always find a way to do put aside some time to just be together. It did not have to be big. It just had to happen.
That was seven years ago. We have kept that promise every single year since.
What seven years actually looks like
There was the summer she was living as a local in Paris, deep in LSAT prep and French language classes, and I flew over under the guise of helping her move to Spain. What followed was a cooking class in a real Parisian's apartment, a Coco Chanel purse-making workshop, her showing me the city she had made her own, rooftop drinks with the Eiffel Tower at sunset, a food tour through Lyon, and biking through the markets of Provence before I dropped her off in a little beach town in southern Spain knowing she was going to be just fine.
There were the years in between that were quieter. Weekends that did not make for dramatic stories but made for something better. Time. Uninterrupted, unhurried time with my daughter.
And then there was Vermont this year.
The glass house in the woods
This past year we rented a tiny glass house tucked away in Ludlow, Vermont. She was still deep in law school, which meant the window was short and the budget for mental energy was even shorter. So we kept it simple on purpose.
I love isolated places like that. No noise, no agenda, no distractions. Just the two of us and whatever we decided to do next. When there is nothing around, the thing that matters most finally has room to breathe.
We hiked a short trail in the morning and stopped for a picnic lunch somewhere along the way. Nothing elaborate. Just food and fresh air and conversation that had nowhere else to be.
The afternoon was the hot tub with a charcuterie board and wine. We read our books. We played a card game. We talked. We laughed til our cheeks hurt. Most importantly, we did not look at our phones because there was genuinely nothing more interesting happening anywhere else in the world than right there.
As the sun went down we made a fire, ate pizza outside, and watched the sky change. Then we went inside and got into bed and watched a movie like two people with absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to prove.
A daughter in the middle of law school. A mom who had been running at full speed for months. A tiny glass house in the Vermont woods. That is all it took.
That is all it ever takes.
The part I need to say out loud
My mom is no longer with us. Our relationship was not always easy. We loved each other and we also knew how to get under each other's skin in the way that only mothers and daughters can.
But what I would give now for one more ordinary afternoon with her. Nothing planned. Nothing important on the agenda. Just the two of us, a glass of wine, and all the small talk I used to take for granted.
I did not know those ordinary moments were the ones I would miss most.
So if you still have your mom, call her today. Not to plan something grand. Not to check a box. Just to hear her voice and let her hear yours.
And if you have been meaning to plan that trip, take that road trip, or simply spend a weekend somewhere quiet with the women who matter most to you, stop waiting for the perfect moment. It does not have to be a flight to Paris or a perfectly planned itinerary. It can be a glass house in the woods. A picnic on a trail. A movie night in bed with nowhere to be in the morning.
Just say yes before the moment passes.
