5 things I’ve learned in 5 months

Moving during any season of life isn’t easy. In my 23 years I only have a few data points to back this up but I’d venture most people would agree.

Whether you like change, hate change, move for a job, move for a person, move for school, are going somewhere new, or returning to somewhere old…

Packing up your life and transplanting it elsewhere brings up a lot. A lot of reflection, a lot of anxiety, a lot of grief, a lot of excitement.

I am a chronic anticipator of change when I can be (thank you anxiety). Some life changes we’ll never be able to predict but others we can see coming. Though I did my best to spend my senior year of college in the present moment, I could forsee the inevitable and I spent months if not years “preparing myself” for the changes post grad would bring.

I listened to podcasts about post grad life, I applied for jobs as early as the Fall semester, I researched cities I might like to live in, I followed closely on social media the people I looked up years older than myself who had already made the transition.

The hard truth is none of it prepared me for the actual thing. Nothing could have.

As much as I’d have hated to admit that last year at this time, I wasn’t in charge of shaping the narrative. I was in charge of taking action and trusting life to unfold as it did. As it does.

—

As humans we crave certainty, our brains would rather be unhappy but ‘certain’ than in unfamiliar territory pursuing the happiness we all consciously strive to claim.

So after graduating college in May of 2023, traveling Europe with my best friend, and returning home mid-June to figure out my next step— I lived in the anticipation of change. The understanding that though home might be comfortable and certain, everything was about to change. What I realize in hindsight is that everything already had.

After weeks into months of applications I accepted a job offer on August 11th agreeing to start work September 5th,

in a city I’d visited once before.

The east coast though only a 2 hour flight from from home felt infinitely farther on September 1st when I boarded a plane in the Delta terminal of O’Hare. The family and friends I’d grown accustomed to seeing daily to weekly were now a digital presence on my phone rather than a tangible support system.

I’ll spare you the details of the Boston real estate market, and the chaos that resulted in landing in the apartment I’ve grown to love. That’s a story for another time.

What I’ll highlight is this disclaimer : there is no rule book. We’re all shaped by our experiences and environments and upbringings and the people we surround ourselves with.

There is no right way to move away from home, to start over, to work towards financial independence, to spend your money, to date.

Anyone who tells you they know the “right way”, more power to them, but before you drop everything and adopt their roadmap as your own, consider this— we can’t assume that anyone else’s right way is our way.

Your way is something only you can pave for yourself. And even when it feels like someone else has paved the road ahead of you, only you can decide to put on food in front of the other and take the steps down it. You can also decide to turn around and choose a different road entirely.

There are moments where I feel on top of the world, dancing around with the silly little tik tok audio “I think I like this little life” looping through my brain.

There are also the moments where I pick up the pen and stare at the blank page in front of me realizing not only were the ‘intro to creative writing’ prerequisites not offered to me, but I actually am questioning everything I know about how to pick up the pen.

The former have slowly gradually increased in 5 months but the latter still occur, all the time. It’s moments like these that bring me to lesson number one

Lesson #1 a regulated nervous system is a foundation to build on

I think I spent my first six to eight weeks here in fight or flight. My body literally forgot what it felt like to be at baseline and I kept going, refusing to give myself the space to realize how wound up I was and how much adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I was exhausted all the time, I didn’t understand why.

It wasn’t until I spontaneously booked an acupuncture appointment (after discovering it was covered by work, score) and spent an hour laying very still while little needles worked their incomprehensible magic that I recognized how absolutely wired I was. Sitting up after my session and swinging my legs off of the table I felt like I was putting my feet on the ground for the first time in weeks.

I didn’t feel refreshed or re-energized in fact I felt even more exhausted, but in a way where the fog had cleared and everything felt fresh and new and slowed down as I exited the building and felt the cold November air on my face.

It wasn’t that my new job or environment were so high stress I couldn’t settle down, it was that I was so overstimulated that the defense mechanisms for survival kicked in ; sink or swim. I had been swimming tirelessly without direction. This appointment reminded me I was safe to just float.

All this to say you don’t have to get stuck with needles to come back to yourself, regulating the nervous system can be done in little ways throughout your day and thats the magic. I’ve been very into learning about nervous system regulation and I am no expert on the subject but the idea has empowered me to take charge of my own self soothing, breaking the cycle of fight, flight, or freeze and returning to a place of calm within myself. Some common practices for nervous system regulation include breathing techniques, humming, rocking, movement practices, touch. Done intentionally and consistently these free and accessible strategies can be deployed almost anywhere anytime.

I’ve reframed my morning meditation to be a nervous system reset in which I follow a guided practice of somatic and breathe work techniques that help me ground into myself before beginning my day. I’ve meditated for years on and off but found it almost unbearable with the intensity of my racing thoughts as of late. These nervous system targeted techniques have helped me get out of my mind and into my body even if for only a few moments.

Lesson #2 clean your closet

I mean this one literally and figuratively.

When I moved I packed a large checked suitcase and a small carry-on and the rest has been an ongoing process of replacing and releasing.

I’ve never been a self-proclaimed minimalist and to be honest I packed light because my plans were not set in stone upon my departure. Long story short I went through an unintentional purge of most clothes and things I owned. Once I realized I could get by with less it only inspired me to get rid of more of my stuff I had left at home when I finally did make my return around the holidays.

This purging energy has extended far beyond physical things like clothes and furniture. I’ve been witnessing it play out in everything from my relationships to behavior patterns to the stories I’ve been telling myself for years.

At first I strongly resisted the shedding, I gripped onto or felt guilty about not staying in touch with everyone I’d ever met. I felt out of place and far from old versions of myself but not quite comfortable or rooted enough to step into new ones. This is an ongoing process and I still feel very much in between who I used to be and who I’m becoming but what has brought me great peace is not forcing it.

Not forcing people to stay in my life

Not forcing big purchases of things I think I ‘need’ right away,

Not forcing ways of doing that worked for me in the past but no longer feel good.

If it’s feeling frantic or forced I invite myself to take a step away from it. This can feel scary when we’ve been so conditioned to believe it is up to us to mastermind our lives. Even one small step away from the things I think I have to have or do or be has allowed me to gain a bit of a different perspective, open up a little bit of space, and this has made all the difference.

Not filling this newfound space with to-doing has been a whole other journey of sitting in discomfort, but it begins with the permission to let that space be there in the first place.

Lesson #3 grief

When we think of grief I think most of our minds go to the farthest end of the spectrum— loosing a loved one and the huge emotions that come with a huge loss. It wasn’t until recently that I began to understand grief as a spectrum and was able to understand that it walks hand in hand with change big and small.

Grieving is feeling and processing the heavy emotions surrounding the loss of someone or something. We don’t always consider that the someone could be a version of ourselves and the somethings can be relationships, seasons of life like college or high school or being single.

Whether you are intentionally letting go or being forced to let go by the ebbs and flows of life, it is not only okay but necessary to feel the feelings associated with the changes.

To feel them is to metabolize them and to enable yourself to go forward having fully experienced the ending and the beginning. Grief is not easy or glamorous but it is a necessary part of the life cycle.

Lesson #4 we literally do not learn any of this in school

To put it bluntly where the fuck were all the classes about finding apartments, electing benefits, setting up retirement accounts, budgeting to have enough food to get ourselves through the week? Don’t even get me started on taxes I haven’t gotten there yet and am frankly terrified by the idea of it.

I’ve always been someone who could laugh at myself but the overwhelming amount of things I’ve realized there is no curriculum for really does baffle me.

One of my favorite tools for coping with anxious thoughts and overwhelm is making a list— the list doesn’t have to make sense or be comprehensive or even be something that gets revisited.

These are not to-do lists, they are just lists.

I have a running list of “adult things I did not learn about” and it is comically long. I am certain that I am not alone in this, I try to let that bring me comfort. We’re all out here figuring it out as we go. I don’t think I’ll ever feel like an adult. I am increasingly sure everyone is just winging it.

Lesson #5 data collection theory

I am a self proclaimed science nerd, a research nerd to be specific, but even if you aren’t I think this mindset shift is so valuable.

If we see life as a big experiment, we as the experimenters are always collecting data.

Some data is considered ‘good’ data, some data is ‘bad’ data, but that distinction is always somewhat subjective. At the end of the day it’s all informative.

Learning that you don’t like doing something one way is still a valuable and usable data point that will inform how you go about a similar situation in the future.

This can literally apply to anything- budgeting, the learning curve of your job, relationships and dating. If every date is a data point, sure they aren’t all going to land where you expected them too otherwise it wouldn’t be an experiement it would be a predictive model, but they’re all informing your next move.

Make a mistake? you’re simply collecting data.

Instead of getting all in your head about how you should have done something differently, chalk it up to being more informed for the next attempt. The more data you collect the better your algorithm gets….

(the metaphor has to end here because I know literally nothing about algorithms but you catch my drift)

—

Some days I look back on 5 months and marvel at how I got here. Some days I feel like I haven’t even made a dent. And both of those are okay.

I know things will continue to ebb and flow, there are more than five lessons I’ve learned in these five months and I am confident that there will be many many more than five to come. But at the end of the day I am proud of where I’m standing.

I am proud of releasing my grip on being perfect or rather stepping back from chasing the illusion of perfection, and I am proud for publishing this.

I’ve had this blog in the works for months but it wasn’t until I hit post on this page that I knew it was time. I hope you’re proud of yourself today too.