Today, I’m going home.
After a month in California, I’m getting on a plane and heading back to Mexico, to my husband, my son, and the life we’ve built there.
And as I sit here thinking about that, I’m struck by how ordinary this feels now.
Not ordinary in the sense of unimportant. Quite the opposite.
But the fact that Mexico is home. That Jorge and Ezra have been there together this entire month while I’ve been in California. That I can spend a month away, visit family and friends, do the work I needed to do, and then get on a plane and go home.
This is my life.
And three years ago, I couldn’t have imagined it.
Three years ago, we were living in the United States. We had our house, our work, our family, our community. We had a life that made sense.
And then Jorge went to Juarez, Mexico, for his visa interview.
We knew there was a possibility that he wouldn’t be allowed to return to the United States. But knowing something is possible and actually experiencing it are two very different things.
He wasn’t allowed back.
And suddenly, the life we had built became uncertain.
I remember how crushing that felt. There were so many things I couldn’t control. I couldn’t control the immigration system. I couldn’t control the decision that had been made. I couldn’t control how long it would take or what our future was going to look like.
But eventually, I realized something that has stayed with me ever since:
I could choose the what. Even when I couldn’t choose the how.
I could choose that we were going to stay together as a family. I could choose that I wanted to be present for my son. I could choose that I wanted a life with more freedom, more creativity, more travel, and more possibility.
I could choose Mexico.
But I couldn’t choose exactly how we were going to make any of that happen.
And that was the hard part.
Because I think we often believe that we need to know the how before we’re allowed to choose the what.
We want the plan. The timeline. The guarantee. The five steps. The evidence that it’s going to work.
We want to know that if we take the first step, the second step will be waiting for us.
But life doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes we are given circumstances we didn’t choose, and our work is to decide what we will do with them.
Sometimes we don’t get to choose the how.
But we can still choose the direction.
So we chose.
And then we figured things out.
We moved to Mexico. We learned how to build a life here. We learned how to navigate uncertainty. We learned how to create work and community and a home in a place that had once been simply a place people visited.
And three years later, I’m sitting here preparing to board a plane to go home.
And I keep thinking:
This is the life I couldn’t have planned.
The life I once might have told myself wasn’t practical. Wasn’t possible. Wasn’t for me.
And yet, here I am.
Living in another country. Traveling between places. Speaking Spanish. Building creative work. Having the flexibility to spend a month in California while my husband and son continue living their life in Mexico.
Creating a life that doesn’t necessarily look like the life I was taught to want, but feels much more like my own.
And here’s what I think is important about this story:
I didn’t have a master plan for any of it.
I didn’t know three years ago that this is where we’d end up. I couldn’t have drawn you a map from there to here.
I just knew what mattered.
And I kept making choices from there.
That’s something I think about often when I talk with other creatives.
Because so many of us have a sense of the life we want. We want more creativity, more freedom, more meaning, more time. We want to build something of our own. We want work that feels like an expression of who we are instead of something we simply do to pay the bills.
We want a life that feels like ours.
But then we get stuck on the how.
How would I make enough money?
How would I find the time?
How would I know what to do?
What if it doesn’t work?
What if I’m wrong?
And sometimes the how becomes the reason we never choose the what.
But what if you don’t need to know yet?
What if you could get honest about what you actually want without immediately demanding a five-year plan from yourself?
What if you could name the direction without knowing the destination?
What if the next step is simply to admit:
This is what I want.
Not what you’re supposed to want. Not what looks impressive. Not what would make sense to everyone else.
But what feels true for you.
And then trust yourself enough to figure out the rest as you go.
Because that’s what I’ve learned.
We don’t always get to choose the how.
But we can choose the what.
And sometimes, that’s enough to begin.
Maybe the freedom isn’t in knowing exactly how everything will unfold.
Maybe the freedom is knowing what matters to you and being willing to keep finding your way toward it.
Because sometimes the road only becomes visible once you’re walking it.
And sometimes the life you thought wasn’t for you is simply the life you haven’t chosen yet.
So as I get on a plane today and head back to the life that once felt completely unimaginable, I’m carrying this question with me:
What is the “what” you already know—but have been waiting to figure out the “how” before allowing yourself to choose?
You don’t have to solve it today.
Just name it.
The how can come later.
Keep Shifting
If you're new here, you might enjoy spending some time with the previous Weekly Shifts. They’re little invitations to pause, question what you’ve been assuming, and get curious about what might be possible when you start listening more closely to yourself.
Read the previous Weekly Shifts →
And if you’re feeling that pull toward something different in your creative life—something that is asking you to stop waiting for the perfect plan and start creating from a deeper sense of what matters to you—this is the work we do inside Making the Shift.
It’s not a formula for building someone else’s version of a creative life and creative business.
It’s a space to step back, get honest about what you want, shift the beliefs and patterns that are keeping you stuck, and begin finding your own way forward.
Explore Making the Shift →
