This month, I find myself reflecting deeply on where I am in life, and where I thought I would be by now. I hate to admit it, but I’m grappling with dissatisfaction over something as arbitrary as age. Rationally, nothing supports this feeling, yet emotionally, it lingers, persistent and stubborn. There’s a stuckness I’ve been carrying, suspended between knowing what needs to change, understanding why it’s important, and actually applying those insights through real boundaries and choices.
We often hear that if we truly let go of the present, and, in some cases, the future we’ve been clinging to, what is meant to be will arrive. And, well… it did. One door closed, and another opened. Yet I found myself holding hope that the past door, if left just slightly ajar, might still offer the resolution I thought I needed to fight for. That hope, I realize now, isn’t motivation—it’s shame. It’s a shame that I’m meeting fully for the first time in my life, and the more I linger in situations or make decisions that are misaligned with the future I want, the more it creeps in.
So why am I stuck? Because shame, for the first prolonged time, has arrived in my life. And the only way through it is to accept it. To recognize the flaws in the systems we live by, to reset, and to release the fear that shame might hold me back. If I let fear dictate my actions, I keep the door ajar, never fully stepping into what’s meant to be. But maybe I don’t need to hold onto that fear at all—it’s a choice that comes from within, a conscious decision to honour my growth and my authentic desires.
What I’m realizing is that growth and clarity rarely arrive neatly. They come in fragments, in loops, in moments of tension and release. The lessons are not about the doors themselves, or even about the paths we hope they’ll lead us to, but about learning to stand steady as the doors swing open and closed around us. The inner work is the constant, the practice of returning to ourselves, even when the outer world is unpredictable. And in that return, in that constant recalibration, we find a subtle strength: the ability to witness life without trying to fix or control it entirely.
Perhaps the harshest and most important lesson is that sometimes what we need most is the reality of our own choices and the consequences of our flaws. When it comes to toxic people or those we feel have wronged us, it’s easy to rationalize our own behaviours, saying theirs were worse, and leaving ours unchecked. But what happens when they leave? Our patterns remain. Pointing the finger rarely provides the closure we think we need; the real growth comes from taking our own actions, confronting our own actions, and choosing differently. It’s not easy, but it’s the kind of work that opens doors to genuine change.
When you hear from me next, I’ll be somewhere under the sun, wandering through solo adventures in Spain. Perhaps I’ll write sooner. But know this: when I speak of new decisions, I speak of doors that shine with possibility, doors calling my name, doors I’m learning to walk through fully, free from the weight of what came before.
