What a gift it is to be able to change.

To foxtrot through a chapter of life (amidst a few stumbles and missteps, naturally) and slow your pace when that music comes to an end. And then the crescendo builds and you’re off waltzing to a different tune, having taken those lessons from the foxtrot and, maybe, stumbling less. But you CAN change, and that’s the moral of the story.

I took “new year, new me” to the nth degree in 2023. I packed up my life, quit my job, got married, and moved to the other side of the country to a place where I know exactly two people. A thrilling, scary, unnerving jazz number with drawn out periods of the blues and quick staccatos of excitement. Have I beat the music metaphor to death, yet?

Any one of these transitions would be enough to shake me, if I’m being honest, but I decided to rip off the (albeit rather large) bandaid and give myself some space to discover what this new tune looks like. Some routine or no routine, days of drizzle and days of peeking sunshine through clouds, cooking each night, finding all the new things (in the best ways—like coffee shops and restaurants and friends and plants—and the worst ways—like dentists and doctors and doggy day cares, oh my!), and reminding myself that I am still valuable and lovable and successful when I’m not producing. My worth doesn’t have to be so intrinsically tied to my productivity.

A very different tune than the Flight of the Bumblebee of content marketing and editorial journalism.

I’ve had to force myself to just not, funny enough. Better start looking for a new corporate job, I think every day. But I told her that she’d get a break. And wouldn’t I give grace for a break to anyone else?

So now, here we are. Writing, playing, walking, puddle-jumping, sipping tea. Walking in bookstores; trying to catch the sun when it’s only out for ten minutes a day.

Join me in pausing, won’t you?

xx

A