Hi. Wow, it feels good to be here.
I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this space. I can’t believe it’s been over 6 months (!!!) since I’ve last written on here – it somehow feels both much longer and much shorter than that. And though I’ve been thinking about returning for a while now, I knew I didn’t want to jump back in and force something that wasn’t feeling right.
I think over the last few years I’ve had a lot of cloudiness regarding my creativity, my writing, and my sense of community. And the confusion only intensified the longer I went without unpacking it. This little Internet space was once my sole creative outlet and such an important conduit of connection for me – it brought me joy and reminded me that I’m more than just the have-to-do’s of my day. When I made time for this blog, even amidst the busiest seasons of college, it felt that I was carving out sacred time and space for me. To be, to think, to reflect. In my normal go-go-go state, I so rarely made that time otherwise.
But then life changed and evolved, as it does. With the pandemic and the general slow-down that came with it, and then college graduation, I found myself in a vastly new season of life. One that looked quieter, stiller, and in all honesty sadder than any I could recall. I spent the two years post-graduation feeling mostly lost, tenuous, and ungrounded.
It was many things – the suddenness of my senior year ending, a sense of lack of closure with the people and places that were my whole world, the lack of clarity about what I wanted to do with my life post-grad, and of course, the general ennui that comes with living through a global pandemic.
Everything I chose to spend my time on felt like grasping at straws – I picked up hobbies and jobs and personal development books, one after the other, and with each one the same pattern would unfold – I would start off excited and hopeful, sure I’d finally found The Thing that would reinvigorate and reinspire me, only to be sorely disappointed when invariably the feeling of languishing would return, and I’d find myself even more lost and unclear than before.
I’m not sure how long it took me to stop flitting and accept that maybe this was a season of life that wasn’t meant to be exciting or inspired or particularly joyful. That this period was just hard, and that was okay because it wouldn’t be this way forever. And that once it was over, a new season would start, where perhaps the creative inspiration and joie de vivre I was missing would just naturally fill up my life again without my needing to force or desperately grasp on to it.
But at some point last year, I did accept it. I began to find peace in the simpler parts of life, the meal I cooked from scratch and enjoyed with my mom over casual conversation, the sweet nightly Facetime calls with my long-distance boyfriend where we’d talk about how life would be when we were finally living in the same place, the long daily walks by the water, the books I devoured one after the other not for personal growth but just to experience a different point of view or a new world.
It didn’t happen all at once, but eventually, something shifted. Where there once was guilt and a sense of not-enoughness, there was now a new sense of worthiness and self-acceptance that left me breathing deeper and feeling more at home in my own skin.
Because it turns out once you take away the striving, the endless to-do lists, the accomplishments, the personal projects – all the things I’d conflated with my identity for so long – you find yourself suddenly more free than you’ve ever felt before. More malleable, more soft, more vulnerable.
Soft-Shell Crabs
There’s a great episode of my favorite podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, where they talk about hard-shell crabs, and how they all go through a period where they lose their shell and become soft-shell crabs for a time. This is when they are at their most vulnerable, so they spend most of their time in hiding, in the dark, alone. Eventually, they regain their hard shell and are able to reenter the world as stronger, sturdier versions of themselves, but that happens on a timeline they have no control over. All they can do is trust that a new season will come and that there is purpose and meaning in each stage of the journey.
And so for the first time in my conscious memory, I allowed myself to be a soft-shell crab. To melt into the discomfort of not knowing when or how change would come, and to not force it to come a minute sooner than was right. Because through it all, I always knew the change would come, and it would come precisely when it was meant to, regardless of all the action I took to expedite the process.
This is around the time that I allowed myself to stop writing. I stopped playing guitar, too, as well as all the other activities that I’d once enjoyed but was now pressuring myself to continue despite not feeling any excitement about them. I wondered if maybe the time had come to let some of those things go, and if that were the case, how would I know if I kept resolutely doing what I’d always done?
So I allowed myself to rest – more perhaps than ever – and then I put my time and energy into the pursuit of finding a job that would enable me to live the kind of life I wanted to live in the next season of my life. Not forever, but just for this next beat.
It took a long time, much much longer than I expected or hoped it would. I’d thought things would settle in my life by end of 2021. Instead, it took midway through 2022 (two whole years after graduating college) for the pieces to slowly start falling into place. Looking back now, I see more clearly why all of that time was, in fact, necessary for me to be ready for the next stage of my life and to shed the various layers that were no longer serving me.
Life Lately
And so, the next chapter started. I began a job that felt exciting and right for this period of my life, and with that, I was able to start planning a move that had been brewing in my mind since graduation. And all of a sudden, I felt that pull again, that drive to take action and try new things and DO. After so long in the BE stage, I can’t tell you how good it felt to want to DO again.
I first threw myself into all the learning I could do at my new job, committing myself to doing my very best in this role that I’d been wanting for so long, and then I focused on putting all the logistical steps in place to move cross-country and finally close the distance between me and my boyfriend.
And in a matter of months, I’d done it. Several months into a job I genuinely enjoy and feel so much potential in, I am also now living on the West Coast, in San Francisco specifically, with my wonderful boyfriend.
We live right by the beach, and I’m obsessed with the view of the expansive ocean with only the horizon visible on the other side, and the waves rolling in. One of my favorite things to do is walk over there before starting work or as a break in the middle of the day, and just taking a moment to breathe.
It’s rivaled only perhaps by the view of the setting sun over the ocean – an altogether otherworldly sight that pictures cannot do justice to – and then once the sun is down, the stars that blanket the sky and take my breath away every single night. I’ve never before lived so close to natural beauty like this, and I feel so incredibly lucky.
My time outside work has been spent taking long walks around our pretty neighborhood, hiking Land’s End where I’m rewarded for my uphill trek with panoramic views of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge (I mean, come on), trying as many new coffeeshops as I can (some things never change), and just trying to explore as much of this pretty city as I feasibly can.
I’ve been loving the adventure and newness of this new chapter, the feeling when I discover a new restaurant that is unbelievably good, the sip of that perfect iced oat latte from a new coffeeshop, the moment when you round a corner and are greeted by a view that stops you in your tracks because it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
And of course there’ve been challenges. Moving cross-country and living as an independent adult for the first time does not come without difficulties or stress. But truthfully, I’m so grateful for even the hard things because they are all part of a reality I’d been dreaming about for years. One that looks so different from what I’ve known, but that feels so RIGHT.
I spent so much of the last three years feeling like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, and that though I had some idea of what I wanted, I had no clue how to actually get there. So my god does it feel good to feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Again, maybe not forever, but for this season, I know I’m where I belong. And that feels pretty damn awesome.
And as for this blog? I started feeling the itch to write again about a month after moving and having some time to settle in and adjust to my new home. I didn’t want to rush it because I still wasn’t sure what blogging would look like in this season, or even if I wanted to keep the blog, or just write for myself. I wasn’t sure what I even wanted to write about, and for a while, I wasn’t even sure I still wanted to write at all.
And now here I am, even though I don’t really have all those answers figured out. All I know is I’m finally feeling really excited to share the many things that I’m experiencing and learning and creating right now, and that feels really good. So this is me dipping my toe back in, no expectations, no real goals, just sharing what’s true and real and me.
Whether you’ve been here from the very beginning and are excited to welcome me back with open arms into your inbox, or you’re a totally new reader who just happened to stumble across my little corner of the internet, I appreciate you and hope you’ll stick around.
I’m excited to rediscover my voice here and to figure out what feels right to share and talk about in this new season of life.
I’m excited to give you my (long overdue) updated list of top NYC spots that I frantically checked off my list in the months before moving. And to share the new spots I’m trying here in SF. Mostly, I want to rediscover the joy and magic of writing authentically and truthfully, and knowing that somewhere out there, my words are hitting home for someone else.
If you feel like following along as I fumblingly navigate this new terrain, stay tuned for more, and feel free to subscribe to the email list so you don’t miss upcoming posts.
I’m so excited for this new season.
Love,
Nicole
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