i have less than a month left living in atlanta, and there isn’t much for me to do except feel it.

the decision has been made. i’m moving back home to baltimore after being away for more than ten years. and even though i know why i’m going, making that decision at almost 30 has brought up a lot. relief, grief, uncertainty. questions about what i thought my life would look like by now, and what i actually need from it.

for a while, the move was still up in the air. then, during my last visit home, i received some devastating news about my mom’s health. it made the decision clear: i need to be there, for reasons bigger than the ones that first made me consider going.

but knowing where i need to be hasn’t made everything else feel clear. in some ways, it has added even more uncertainty to a transition i was already trying to make sense of. the decision is settled, but there is still so much i’m sitting with.

there are things to prepare for, of course. but there’s also all this space between deciding to leave and actually leaving. i’m still here, living inside a chapter i already know is ending.

and lately, walking has been helping me live through that space.

i thought i would come back to the same thing

in 2022, i moved to atlanta with a bang. i was strategizing for the business i wanted to build going into 2023. i had plans, momentum, and a strong connection with someone i thought would be part of what came next. i had a picture of where i thought my life was going.

then, absolutely nothing worked out the way i thought it would. going into 2023, i found myself in a void space i hadn’t planned for.

since then, the slowdown happened gradually. i started pulling back from influencing and giving more attention to myself, my health, and my wellness. during that void space, i began questioning things i had spent years accepting as part of the job. the pressure to keep performing on social media just so i could have something to post, stay visible, and keep people interested.

i’ve been online for so much of my life. because my entry into this work was through being an influencer, there were things i absorbed as requirements for being a creator. keep posting. keep giving people access. keep making your life into something people want to watch.

having space from that helped me begin separating what i actually wanted to share from what i had learned to do to keep everything going. i was realizing how much my relationship with the work had changed, but i still thought those realizations would help me to eventually just… return to it differently.

i thought i would take care of myself, get some clarity, and come back to the career i already knew with different boundaries and a little more ease. i assumed that honoring the void space would eventually make the work feel right again.

but, the changes that have happened go deeper than that. what i want to give my energy to, what i’m willing to share, and how i want to show up have shifted enough that the way i built my career no longer fits at all.

it’s only now that i’m realizing i’m not preparing to return to the same career in a different way. i’m preparing to build something completely new.

that’s the blank slate i’m looking at now. i have a clearer sense of what i’m leaving behind than what i’m moving toward. and, that adds another layer of fear and uncertainty around moving home. i thought this long reset would help me return to something familiar and take it further. instead, i’m actually making room for a different way of living and working that i haven’t figured out yet.

i know i need to go home. i just don’t know what my life will look like once i get there.

there is a lot of responsibility inside freedom

people talk about working for yourself like the freedom is the whole story. you make your own schedule. nobody tells you when to wake up or where to be. you can decide what your days look like.

and yes, i have loved that freedom.

but when work is quiet and nobody needs anything from you, you still have to decide how you’re going to show up for yourself.

there isn’t always a meeting to get dressed for. there isn’t always a deadline giving the day a shape. sometimes you wake up with a lot on your mind and very little on your calendar.

that freedom requires you to know yourself. to recognize when you need rest, when you need support, and when staying in bed a little longer is starting to become a way of avoiding the day.

i know how easy it would be for me to fall back into old patterns right now. to stay inside. to spend hours thinking about my life without actually participating in it. to let one quiet day turn into several, until getting up starts feeling harder than it did before.

having somewhere to be helps. but lately, i’ve had to create that reason for myself.

learning to sit with it

a lot of my time in atlanta has been about learning how to tolerate discomfort.

learning how to let a feeling exist without immediately trying to fix it. how to be in a void space without filling every inch of it with something to do. how to recognize that sometimes there really isn’t another action to take yet.

i used to be much more willing to create activity just so i wouldn’t have to feel still. there was always something i could work on, start, rethink, or turn into a project.

but, i don’t want to force work that isn’t there simply because having less to do makes me uncomfortable. especially when i’ve been asking for the space to reconsider how i work in the first place. i want to give myself time to process what is happening without rushing to make that time look productive. this is a big transition. i’m allowed to feel it.

what i’m learning now is that i can give myself that space and still get up in the morning. i can leave some questions unanswered and still take care of my body. i can have a quiet season without spending the whole season in my head.

walking has become a way for me to practice that.

the promise that gets me outside

my minimum is 10,000 steps a day.

it’s a goal i started as part of my road to 30 journey, but it has become something much more meaningful to me during this transition.

it gives my day a little structure when there isn’t much else shaping it. even when work is slow, even when i don’t know what comes next, i know there is one thing i want to do for myself.

i have to get up. put on my shoes. leave the house or hop on that treadmill.

and once i’m outside, there is more to pay attention to than whatever thought i’ve been turning over for the past hour. the weather. the people passing me. the way the air feels now that it’s getting cooler.

my life gets a little bigger than what’s happening in my head.

there are also moments when i’ve already been sitting for too long, thinking myself in circles, and i realize i can just get up and walk. i don’t have to wait until i’ve figured everything out to move.

sometimes i leave with the same questions i come home with. but i feel different carrying them. sometimes i get up and go walking without a plan. i don’t know exactly where i’m going or what i’ll come across, and i end up somewhere better than i expected.

that feels symbolic of my life right now. i’m used to wanting to know where something is going before i let myself begin. but lately, i’m learning to take a step, pay attention, and let the next one reveal itself.

i don’t have the whole route figured out yet. but these walks keep reminding me that good things can happen along the way, even when i didn’t know to plan for them.

somewhere for the feelings to go

the best way i can describe it is that walking keeps the energy moving.

there is so much happening internally right now, even when my life looks quiet from the outside. i’m letting go of expectations. making difficult decisions. getting ready to return to a place i left when i was 18, as someone who has lived a whole life since then.

walking gives all of that somewhere to go.

i can feel sad and keep walking. i can feel uncertain and keep walking. i can have a day where i don’t feel especially motivated and still do something that leaves me feeling cared for.

and there is something comforting about knowing that, while other things are unfolding in their own time, i’m investing in myself every day. my health. my body. my ability to keep a promise to myself.

when i go beyond 10,000 steps, that feels good too. but even on the days when i only reach my minimum, i have something tangible to return to: i got up. i got outside. i did this for me.

one month difference, hitting 10k steps daily.

i’m still here

when i say walking has helped keep me from falling into a depression, i’m talking about the difference i can feel in my own days.

it gives me a reason to leave the bed when there isn’t an outside obligation making me leave it. it interrupts the hours i could spend overthinking. it helps me stay connected to myself during a time when so much feels unresolved.

i’m still sitting with the discomfort. i’m still grieving parts of this chapter. i’m still almost 30, moving home, and figuring out how i want to live and work from here.

but i’m also outside, taking care of myself, letting the day happen around me.

right now, i don’t have a clear answer for everything. i have a pair of shoes by the door and a promise i’ve been keeping.

that has been helping more than i expected.

keep up—

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