I used to think freedom meant being free to do whatever I want—change relationships, change jobs, change cities, never being fully committed to anything but change itself. The only constant in life is change. So in my mind, by constantly changing I was going with the inevitable flow of life, while staying translated to stagnancy. It was an immature way of understanding freedom.
I’ve written about how I grew up, about the uncertainty, experiences, and expectations that shaped the way I approached life as an adult. I’ve also written about my journey with understanding, accepting, and reframing those experiences instead of allowing them to hold me back. But over the past eight months I’ve been in a deconstructing phase of life, and while I’ve been deeply grateful for the time and space I’ve had to decompress, recalibrate, and just be—the reality is that I didn’t retire, I resigned, and it’s time to start participating in life again, creating impact, adding value, being of service.
But before I could do any of that again, I needed to make a choice—should I stay or should I go? The past fifteen months in the midwest have been filled with the understanding that I’m leaving, that this isn’t my forever place, that it’s too small, that I’m supposed to be in a big, busy, coastal city. Living in a smaller city with a calm nervous system doesn’t feel so calming when you’ve spent most of your life in hypervigilance—calm feels like settling, calm feels boring, chaos feels like excitement. At least that’s what I used to think. The truth is that chaos is just what felt normal to me, what my nervous system was accustomed to. So unless I wanted to always be on the go, never slowing down long enough to enjoy life in one place—I needed to rewire, regulate, reprogram my nervous system to recognize calm as clarity and comfort.
So that’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s working. How do I know? Because I chose to stay where I am. I was on the cusp of moving south—when I say cusp, I mean approximately 80% certainty—but then I realized that the newness of moving only felt exciting because it meant reinventing myself once again in a new place, with new people and new opportunities. But then reality sets in and the truth is that I’m just starting all over again from scratch, and why? Things are good right now, really good, and there are several exciting opportunities where I’m at right now—nothing set in stone, I’m just exploring options, but there’s plenty to choose from.
I’ve realized that there’s freedom in choosing to stay, that there’s opportunity to build something real—and that applies to cities, jobs, relationships. Our society is all about instant gratification right now; I haven’t gone ad-free on Amazon and find myself getting frustrated when there’s a commercial break, but breaks are alright—why do I need a constant stream of consumption? Yes, I know that watching commercials still classifies as consumption, but you get my point. Same goes for dating apps: searching, swiping, always looking for the next best thing. There’s no such thing as perfection—that applies to cities, jobs, and relationships (again). For me, being afraid to pause, commit, settle on something was about fear more than anything—if I don’t do those things I never really make myself vulnerable so I can’t get hurt. But settling on something wasn’t what was hurting me; I was hurting myself by allowing my past to define my present choices. Now I’m choosing differently. I’m choosing to stay, and there’s real freedom in that.
