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Ashley Rose Walton
Sep 8, 2018 · 5 min read

Intro to Sabbatical Planning

And after seven years, she rested.

Rested. What does that even mean? For every person, rest looks different. One thing that feels restful to one person could feel like malaise to someone else. Working in the garden, a moment of rest for the gardener, can feel like tortured work to the brown thumb. Sitting in a quiet little room, writing utensil and well-worn journal on the table, could feel like rest to the poet. It could also feel like death to the do-er.

The beautiful thing about the uniqueness of each creature is that we get to operate differently from each other. Which also means, there are no right answers to the question “How are you going to spend your sabbatical?” So, when that question came rolling towards me, I batted it away. A few times. Intentionally.

It’s funny how a simple question can feel equally freeing/exciting and, equally constraining/daunting. In classic Ashley form, I then told people to stop asking me the question. How long could I procrastinate?

For a few weeks I stood stumped as to why planning my sabbatical was leaving me utterly frozen. After working for seven long and beautiful years, it was the exact thing I was anticipating. The climatic moment when I could finally have an extended time away from my daily, wonderful grind.

What I came across, in those frozen weeks, was grief. An acknowledgement of what happens when what you have imagined for so long does not actually end up looking as you had imagined. Funny how that happens.


When I started working, I forecasted (maybe naively) seven years down the road. I saw a husband. A house I owned, perhaps a dog, definitely a cat. Perhaps even a child. Perhaps.

I’ll acknowledge, first and most importantly, that I am beyond grateful for the things that those seven years brought me. Rest, travel, education, freedom. A strength and growth in independence I could not have forecasted, but needed all the more. There was and is a fullness to life, but there are also some holes of desire. These holes, though varying in depth and shape, all humans share. There’s rest in that.

But, I did not have those things. These things I had hoped for when I forecasted seven years down the road (albeit a 25-year-old baby pants). Year after year went by. My role at work shifted, grew, even expanded in dynamic ways. While my marital status, home status, baby status, stayed static.

Arriving at the sabbatical had, in my futuristic mind, meant having some rest with my family. With those I love and hold close. Working towards new patterns, new routines for our family. Staying home and making home even better.

After writing all of that grief and longing on an extra long piece of paper (tabloid, to be precise), I finally had a breath of fresh freedom. Releasing that sadness and frustration left me a new amount of space in my lungs. I could, I realized, still do all of those things. I can spend time with my family in ways I couldn’t if I were working. I can bring a new sense of closeness, of intentionality, to my dear friends. I can work towards new patterns, new routines. For my family. My family of me.


Well, after I realized this, the floodgates opened. My imagination can be relentless. Tortured, but relentless.

Being the complicated person I am (and love being), I was now frozen by the amount of things I could do. Thankfully, two important people intersected with me in this scattered place and put two firm stakes in the ground.

Stake one

This stake consisted of questions that would fence me in, per say. Or, said another way, create freeing boundaries, that I desperately needed. Here were some of the questions asked of me:

  • What will be the ‘things’ I come up against?
  • How will I handle disappointment?
  • How will I create a space that lessens anxiety?
  • How will I cultivate presence each day?

The first question led me to create four rails, or, a squared fence. I will, most definitely, come up against these four things:

1 — Disappointment in something not being what I expected or imagined it to be/feel like;

2 — Loneliness, in all its varying forms;

3 — Indecisive or uncertain about the daily details;

4 — Anticipating the next before I’ve entered the present.

In contrast to these internal fears, I then made statements about things I wanted to cultivate instead of fear (knowing, likely it will always be a mixed bag):

1 — Instead of disappointment, contentment and delight.

2 — Instead of loneliness, comforted in being loved by those I love.

3 — Instead of indecision, faith that each detail, on purpose or by accident, was meant for me.

4 — Instead of anticipation of the next, at peace in the ease of the present.

It was those four statements that became the lens for my decisions. That said, many ideas got crossed off the list. Like, I would not travel internationally, even though every romantic bone in my body wanted to hide away in some Parisian apartment.

Stake two

Having witnessed me sharing a story, a dear friend mirrored an expression on my face to me. (Which, by the way, for someone to be able to accurately read your face, on behalf of and for you, is one of the more beautiful ways to be humans together.) I was telling of a time I lived in Italy, during college, and finally got to visit one of the buildings I had been studying the last three years. It was the most out-of-body, in-the-body experiences. Apparently my face lit up.

This friend renamed my ‘sabbatical’ as a time of pilgrimage. Toward something. Not away from or stagnant within. But toward the beautiful, toward the good, toward the sacred.

And just like that, the accurate renaming of my time brought forth a deep and guttural sigh of relief. Finally someone had seen what I really wanted and hoped for. She caught just a glimpse, even to retell back to me what inspired my face to light up. Good spaces.

I began mapping out all the spaces I ever wanted to go to. Gardens, buildings, canyons, forests, cities, etc. I didn’t filter, I just let it flow out of my fingers onto Mister Google map.


A few weeks later, after mustering up my pragmatic, planner-oriented self, the time was planned. For the most part. It was shaped, molded and fenced in. With some breathing room for things to change. Duh.


My hope is to be able to write as way to process what I come upon, as I come upon it. I’d love to write about what it feels like to be within the light, shade, and narrowness of Antelope Canyon. Or, to finally get to see Sister Corita Kent’s pieces IRL (as the kids say). Or even, what it’s like to drive from Sedona, AZ to LA, alone, in a tiny car, across the desert. Hopefully with a full tank of gas.

If you want in on this, I’ll be writing every now and then on here as a way to share. Come as often as you’d like. I’d love to have ya.

Ashley Rose

Ashley Rose Walton

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