The last time I felt this particular pull to change course was the fall of 2016. Which wildly enough was a decade ago! I was 42. I’m an Aquarius in every way, so when my soul reminds me it’s time to change course, I get to work.
Around this same time of year, ten years ago, I didn’t feel good in my body. What started as a plan to lose weight morphed into a complete overhaul of my appearance. I lost the weight and became a gym rat. I lasered away years of sun damage. And I found a lot of joy in all the girly pleasures of that era… lashes, nails, hair extensions, injections and treatments to freeze time (at least on my face). By most conventional standards, I had never looked better.
I genuinely believed back then that by changing my appearance I would change how it felt to be me. And to some extent it did. My discipline, strength and confidence were real. But there was interior work I couldn’t yet see. I wouldn’t understand that part until much later.
My last four years have included sobriety, understanding my own story and doing the healing work I never had a fair chance to do earlier.
I don’t feel called to spend the next decade becoming better at healing. I feel called to become excellent at living.
This time, when I felt in my bones that it was time to change course, the invitation was different. I don’t feel called to make another list and decide that success will be waiting for me at the end of it. This time, I want to ask a different question: What does it actually mean to live well?
In this season, living well looks like strength in my body, nourishing myself with real foods, reading and learning, creating more than consuming, writing TNB and making my home beautiful and functional. It looks like investing in deep relationships, being present with my family, curiosity and spirituality, fun, travel and adventure, keeping promises to myself and using my days instead of disappearing into them.
And yes healing still happens. It’s just not the occupation of this next phase.
42-year-old Kim transformed what she could see.
52-year-old Kim gets to build from what she knows.
As I’m typing this, there’s an oak tree just outside my window. When the words won’t come, she’s where my eyes go. What is actually different this time?
