“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” – Dr. Seuss

Time is funny like that. 

In my twenties it felt like motion- airports, new cities, late nights, early trains, always somewhere else to be. My life could fit in a suitcase. I would leave on a whim and the world felt enormous and wide open. I chased sunsets in unfamiliar places and lived off curiosity, wine and adrenaline. 

Now my thirties look quieter. A cozy apartment tucked into the woods. Mornings that start slow. Familiar trails, familiar mugs, familiar peace. Trying to grasp sobriety.  A life that doesn’t move so fast. 

And if I’m honest, sometimes it’s conflicting. 

Some days I miss that girl who was always on the go, who collected passport stamps, boarding passes, train tickets and stories like they were oxygen. Sometimes I even grieve that life a little. The freedom, the chaos, the constant motion. 

But I’m learning that this is life too. 

I’m learning how adventure doesn’t always look like a boarding pass or running away. Sometimes it looks like building a life that feels safe. Sometimes it’s learning to stay. Sometimes it’s learning how to be still. 

There are moments I feel a little lost between those two worlds – the wanderer I was and the woman learning to put down roots. But slowly, I’m figuring out how they can exist together. 

How to keep the curiosity. 

How to keep the adventure. 

How to carry that girl with me, even here. 

Maybe time doesn’t ask us to choose who we were or who we’re becoming. Maybe it’s just teaching us how to bridge the two. 

The traveler and the homebody. 

The chaos and the calm. 

And somehow… make a life that holds them both. 

Earlier tonight, I was looking through old photos, and my heart ached a little for that rush of adventure again – the unknown streets, the fleeting sunsets, the dizzying freedom of it all. But there was also a quiet excitement, a curiosity about what life is going to look life moving forward.

How will I carry the girl in her twenties who roamed the world into the woman in her thirties who now calls this cute little place in the forest home? 

I suppose only time will tell, and somehow that feels like the adventure I’ve been waiting for all along…