On anxiety, upheaval, and embracing change.

I’m sitting here on my front porch with a cup of tea and the beginnings of a book.

It is one of those impossible summer days made of July sky and October air. It is a perfect morning. And for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe.

In two weeks, I will no longer be sitting on my front porch in Nashville. I’ll be in a conference center in London. A week later, I’ll be moving into my apartment in Edinburgh, wandering the streets of Old Town in search of tea and balance.

The last few months have been trying, to say the least. A plunge into the depths of anxiety rendered me unable to focus, to write, to live my life to the standard that I’ve always demanded of myself. I have always had one rule: to never let fear stop me from embracing change. And for the past few months, it has. I’ve wanted to shrink away from life, into safety, into the known. I looked at this move with dread, and if I’m being honest, there is still a measure of it there. But I’m not going to let that dread stop me. And that’s a sign that I’m finding my way back to myself. My stubborn, challenge-loving side is showing up again, and I’ve never been so happy to see it.

There is a line that shows up in most of my books. Said by Mackenzie Bishop’s father, or Aria Blue, or Delilah Bard (you will meet her soon).

It will be an adventure, they say. I say.

People keep asking me, “Are you ready?” and the answer is no. Of course not. I’m not sure how someone truly makes themselves ready for change. Change is something that happens to us, and even when we invite it, we are the reactive force, the recoil, the reverberation.

For the first time in my life, I’m not suffering from wanderlust. I’m not restless, eager to get away. I’d be perfectly happy to sit here on this front porch and write and breathe and be still. But change is coming. And I’m going to meet it with my chin up.

Because it’s going to be an adventure.

And if we didn’t have those, what would we have to write about?