The “Never” That Came Back For Me
gracie’s muse · no. 004 · the “never” that came back for me
A snapshot walking to the subway after a date in Brooklyn.
It's been 10 years since I left New York. I had a love-hate relationship with New York…the US…and everything this life represented.
I was 36, burnt out, and in need of a healing season away from the grind.
I was emotionally locked up. Tired and numb I needed to relieve the pressure of what this life requires.
I needed space.
I needed a chance to catch up with myself. To quiet the anxiety. To feel my heart.
After I took the leap, I often said, "I'll never live in the US again." But I knew anything you say "never" to will likely come back to make a liar of you.
My resentment of how hard it felt here was deep. The healthcare. The food. The material obsession. The labels. The shallow measuring sticks.
I moved through 10 years without a plan…just a faint vision with a delusional belief of who I am. How I am. And why I am.
Each step informed the next. Nothing more.
I traveled…mostly solo and rarely planned. I said yes to things my family feared.
It was a spontaneous feel-it-and-go kind of life.
I learned how to live with very little and still look cute. I learned how to communicate when English wasn't an option.
I learned how to make the uncomfortable, comfortable.
The unknown, exciting.
I fell in love around every corner. From a wedding in Ireland, to an airport in Thailand, to the Spanish Steps in Rome, to the Pyrenees in Andorra. Collecting love stories and heartbreak as if it were my job.
But I also fell in love with cultures, history, foreign friends, artists, music, exotic food, dramatic landscapes, new perspectives, and…me.
It all came full circle this year — the Year of the Fire Horse. The "never" came back for me.
And I could've stayed rooted in this absolute definition of who I am, or who I'm not, but that would've defeated the purpose of it all.
So here I am. Back in NY. Without a plan, just a vision.
Morning walk to meet an old friend I hadn’t seen in 10 years.
Without a plan, just a vision.
Someone asked me, “What does it mean you have a vision, but don’t have a plan?”
There can be a lot of judgment on this way of being, where you're assumed to be a flake or unreliable.
A plan answers…what am I going to do, when, in what order? It's pre-defined.
A vision answers…what could be? what do I want to create? why does it matter? It's defined in action.
So it's not to say I don't plan for anything. It's to say I plan one to two steps ahead and leave room to incorporate what becomes available as I take action.
If you move according to a pre-defined plan, you usually have blinders on to all the things you didn't plan for.
And from my experience, what's possible is always greater than what we can imagine, let alone plan for.
And as this wild, fast-moving era unfolds, I believe this will be a necessity for how to live. It requires a clear intuitive connection to yourself and the world around you.
Faith. Agility. Courage. Presence. And the ability to think on your toes with discernment.
Each step informing the next. Nothing more.
