Moving On
I recently had to look up my addresses back to when I was 17 for a project I’m working on.
I knew I had lived in many places (all in Nebraska except for two small stints in France) but I had never “done the math.”
What I learned, I’ve lived in 15 places in 30 years. I don’t have any family in the military, it was all here in the same state and two cities.
Most of these moves were simply because of me — searching.
And while looking back wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it might be (there were many bright spot memories) doing the math made me sad for my younger self.
I remember so clearly with each move thinking “This is the one.” THIS is the place where I’m going to feel better, start a life I can be proud of, feel safe.
And when that inevitability didn’t happen, because turns out you can’t move away from your brain, I’d find some reason I simply had to move. I’d go searching for the next place. Searching for the next solution to find peace.
In 9 out of the 15 places, I lived alone. And as I’ve said before when we’re really suffering, I now understand alone isn’t an ideal place to be. Thoughts go darker, and solutions become skewed.
How I survived some of those years is a mystery to me. But I think sharing things like this might just be why I made it through.
So what’s the lesson? For me, the fact that the first thing I felt about this was empathy for “baby Katie” and not shame or avoidance is huge growth for me.
I’m proud I now understand that while sometimes change and achievement is a great thing, sometimes it’s just another way to numb. To avoid the pain and grit that comes with deep inner work.
My current work is finding appreciation that lessons like this are being brought to me. I’m trying to appreciate that big inner storms bring more learning, more growth, and more empathy. That is such a TOUGH lesson when every bone in your body is aching as you are processing. But the only way out is through, so here we go…
Face the ache friends, find empathy over shame, learn the lesson and move on.
Not to another address 🙂 but to another stage of life. That’s where balance lives, and that’s where life opens up.
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