Coming Home to the Page: An Outline

Hello 🙂

It’s been a minute. Life has a funny way of grounding you when you get off balance. I’d been operating in survival mode for so long that I forgot how fulfilling it is to post updates on this site, a site that has always served as a home base for travel, life, and growing-pain musings.

But it feels good to be home.

With renewed energy, a mountain of lived experience, and the perspective of a woman now entering perimenopause, I’m returning with a different lens. I think I was around 25 or 26 when I published my first post here. Sixteen years later, at 41, I feel like I’ve changed so much, and yet, not at all.

The Pause

2025 was… a wreck. Did it feel that way for you too?

I left Washington, D.C. after eight years and returned to my home state. I left my federal career, and a fully remote job I genuinely loved, after uncomfortable workplace conditions created by DoGe. At the same time, my health plummeted: unmanaged low ferritin, leaky gut, fibroids. Applying for jobs in this market has been exhausting, and I wasn’t prepared for what life without structure would actually feel like.

More honestly, I hadn’t realized how dysregulated my nervous system still was.

I thought this new era of “funemployment” would naturally usher me back into creative pursuits, acting, blogging, YouTube, and eventually income from my personal endeavors. It didn’t unfold that way. No one really talks about how difficult it is to plan a future when your nervous system is frayed and overwhelmed.

So I did what felt most aligned with restoring peace: I traveled.

Two weeks after my final day as a federal employee, I went to Japan, a place I once believed I’d only see after retirement or with three consecutive weeks of approved leave. I stayed for about three weeks, celebrated my birthday there, gained weight, lost weight, and rediscovered parts of myself I hadn’t accessed in years. Being there felt like a long exhale after holding my breath through multiple administrations.

Japan was exactly as magical and grounding as everyone says. I documented some of it on YouTube, and I’ll share more reflections here in time.

What the Pause Taught Me

In the months I wasn’t posting, I realized just how much the creator landscape has changed. Flashy short-form content dominates now, while long form writing and blogging feel quieter, almost rebellious. I’ve had to think carefully about the voice I want to carry forward here.

I also learned that freedom without structure can be destabilizing.

After Japan, I sat a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat in Nepal. It left me empty in both good and uncomfortable ways. It confirmed that I’m resilient, that I can do hard things, but it also forced me to confront who I am when life isn’t scheduled, mandated, or externally organized.

The hardest part hasn’t been meditation or travel. It’s been finding myself again in unstructured time and finding work in the midst of it.

Why Writing Still Matters

I still love blogging, even in a world dominated by Substack and short-form platforms. Writing grounds me, and I often wonder why I’ve always started and stopped.

But lately I’ve been asking a different question:
What would happen if I didn’t stop?

When I first started, I told myself to give it three years. I’m not sure I ever blogged three years consistently. But during the 2011–2014 era, it was joyful. I met people through natural hair and travel blogging communities. When travel slowed, I questioned what I had left to say.

Now I see it clearly: it was never just about travel. Or hair. It was always about becoming.

Witnessing the becoming, mine and others. That’s what draws me to stories, podcasts, and memoirs. So that’s what I’m leaning into now.

What to Expect Going Forward

I’ve been returning to activities I loved as a child, and I’ll be sharing more about that. I know I’m not the only woman rediscovering herself in her forties, and I’d love to find my people along the way.

This space will be slower. More reflective. More honest.

I’m also learning to be publicly vulnerable, not perfectly, but intentionally. I’m less afraid of being seen than I once was. Life is too short not to live as the artist I know I was meant to be.

Closing

So, if you’re interested in keeping up with my antics, I’d love to have you here. If you’ve been reading since the beginning, thank you for staying. And if you’re navigating your own season of uncertainty, reinvention, or becoming, I’m glad you found your way here.

Let’s do it together.