Even the Pause Was Taking Me Somewhere

I used to be really bad at doing nothing.

Not nothing nothing.

The kind of nothing where life isn’t necessarily going wrong, but it also isn’t moving fast enough for me to feel like I’m accomplishing something.

The quiet spaces.

The waiting spaces.

The what exactly am I supposed to be doing right now? spaces.

I wanted to push through them. Fix them. Create a plan. Find the lesson. Get back into my routine. Become productive again.

Anything except simply be there.

I think the last few months have taught me something different.

When I moved out of my little trailer in Key West, I struggled more than I expected.

It wasn’t just a move.

That trailer had become part of what Key West meant to me. It held a version of my life I loved. Leaving it felt like losing a tiny piece of the world I had created here.

Then I moved into a new space and had to figure out how to live in it.

Except almost immediately, another change appeared on the horizon.

Australia.

So there I was, trying to settle into a home I already knew I would eventually leave.

For someone who likes movement, growth, plans and that satisfying little feeling of look, I’m getting somewhere, this was uncomfortable.

My routines weren’t perfect.

Some of my healthy habits disappeared for a while.

There were days when I wasn’t exercising the way I wanted to. Days when I wasn’t accomplishing much of anything. Days when I felt like I should be doing more to prepare for whatever came next.

And for once, I started letting that be okay.

I rested.

I wandered around inside this strange little middle chapter.

Eventually, without forcing it, pieces started returning.

I found a routine again.

I started moving my body again.

I started thinking about Australia not only as a place I’m moving to, but as a life I’ll need to build.

How will I find community?

How will I maintain the habits that make me feel like myself?

How do I create a home in a place where I don’t know anyone yet?

And maybe most importantly:

How do I take care of myself while becoming someone new again?

The funny thing is, that small move across Key West may have been exactly the practice I needed.

It taught me that transition doesn’t always require immediate reinvention.

Sometimes you arrive somewhere and simply exist there for a while.

You let yourself be unsettled.

You let the old routines fall apart.

You notice what you actually miss.

Then, slowly, you begin putting things back.

Not because you’re desperately trying to become who you were before, but because you’re discovering what still belongs with who you’re becoming.

I’ve spent so much of my life believing that forward movement had to look like action.

Now I’m starting to understand that sometimes forward movement looks remarkably still.

The Stoics wrote about focusing on what is ours to control and releasing our grip on what isn’t. Jung wrote about the parts of ourselves that emerge when we turn inward instead of constantly looking outward.

I think I’m beginning to understand both in my own way.

There are seasons for building.

Seasons for leaving.

Seasons for arriving.

And there are strange little seasons where you’re standing between all three.

Maybe those aren’t empty spaces at all.

Maybe they’re where we quietly decide what we’re taking with us.

So right now, I’m preparing for Australia.

I’m moving my body.

I’m thinking about community.

I’m rebuilding habits.

I’m tying up pieces of my Key West life.

But I’m not trying to sprint through the space between here and there anymore.

Because April became May.

May became June.

June became July.

And somehow, without me forcing every piece into place, August arrived and things started coming together.

They usually do.

And when they don’t?

I’ll figure that out when I get there too.

For now, I’m learning to trust the quiet.

Turns out, even the pause was taking me somewhere. ☀️🌈🦋