I feel like I am starting the rest of my life now. It sounds dramatic, but it is an all-too-accurate description of my current happenings.

Just a month ago, I was wrapping up my master’s program in Santa Cruz, California, closing a chapter in a place defined by towering redwoods and salt air. By the next week, I was in Newport Beach, balancing the simple joy of frozen bananas on Balboa Island with long, exhausting hours in a classroom, learning how to survive at sea for an STCW basic safety training course. The very next day, I took the ferry to Catalina Island with a friend for snorkeling, sightseeing, and an unexpected stumble into a vibrant pride parade and drag show.

Then, 48 hours later, I was back in the tight, familiar confines of my overpacked Subaru, singing Ella Langley and Fruit Bats all the way back to Michigan to begin my next career step.

Or so I thought.

My Beloved Blueprints

I love a plan, especially when it concerns my career. Over the years, I’ve learned to mostly let go of strict itineraries in my personal life—a shift that has made my cross-country road trips and weekend micro-adventures infinitely more joyful. Embracing the unplanned usually leads to the most fulfilling twists and turns. But despite unlearning my Type-A tendencies on the road, I still deeply appreciate a nicely mapped-out blueprint for my professional life.

My plan for the summer was beautifully clear: live and work onboard Viking Cruise’s vessel, the Octantis, as a Science Communication Fellow. In partnership with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, I was set to host and produce an original podcast series detailing the cutting-edge science happening onboard and on land—from mapping paleolandscapes and hunting shipwrecks to tracking fish ecology. I was ecstatic. Fresh out of graduate school with hands-on podcast production and hosting experience, I was ready to take it all on.

Instead, a sudden medical detour threw off my compass. A series of abnormal labs and unexpected test results have temporarily delayed my sea clearance. While I am still hoping and planning to produce this series from land, this is the very first time a major career plan hasn’t gone smoothly for me. It is also the first time I have ever had to navigate a health-related hurdle. It has been a stark, humbling reminder that you simply cannot out-work or out-plan life.

But I’ve always believed that the universe ultimately conspires in my favor. So, what do I do now?

Girl, Take a Chill Pill

A sign lives above the front door of my childhood home that reads “It is what it is. But it will become what you make of it…” Perhaps this whole thing is a quiet signal to take a breath and simply exist.

Existing is something I am very, very bad at. I thrive on movement, exploration, and constant work. My body and my luck have rarely slowed me down, and I have spent years pushing my mental and physical limits every single day. But now, I am wondering if I am finally staring at a cosmic stop sign. A gentle prompt to chill, breathe, and actually absorb the wild adventures and accomplishments of the last few years.

I have been running at full speed across the country since finishing my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan. Until recently, I thought I was living out my dream, thoroughly enjoying the constant displacement.

But as I am nearly forced to sit still and reflect, I am beginning to realize that maybe it is time for an adjustment. A boring life can be a beautiful one. A still life can be just as fulfilling as cramming four national parks into a single week—though I am admittedly still deciding on that one. My priorities have shifted over the past few months, and this sudden stillness is only validating them.

Despite the ambiguity of this moment, I have decided to stay in the Great Lakes region for the foreseeable future. My heart belongs here. Even when I was in California, reporting on the brilliant marine research of Monterey Bay, a part of me couldn’t wait to get my hands on a Great Lakes story. It is the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, yet almost everyone outside of the Midwest seems to underestimate its scale. I am determined to highlight its beauty and power. I don’t fully know what that looks like yet, but I am excited to test the waters.

I am actively searching for a full-time communications or reporting role, so if you know of any aligned positions, please send them my way! But aside from the job hunt, I want to use this period of grounding to focus on other passion projects.

I recently heard a podcast guest tell listeners that their life motto is “Get curious. Lean in. Talk to people. Try stuff. Tell the story.” I hope to embody this as I begin a new wave. I want to use my social media and film photography to tell the compelling stories and highlight the rustic edges of the freshwater coast. I want to adventure around the lakes and into unique communities. I want to share different perspectives, dive into science, showcase change-makers, and if I can find a way to make money while writing and photographing my way through it, all the better.

I am still figuring it all out, carrying the same handful of ambitious ideas that enjoy ruminating in my brain: selling my art at markets, finally getting yoga or pilates certified, continuing to learn to sail, maybe getting my captain’s license. But I keep reminding myself that THERE IS NO RUSH. 

For once, I am granting myself the luxury of time. Time to build a physical community here. Time to establish a regular yoga studio, a go-to cafe, and a favorite local brewery. Time to plant a garden, hang pictures on the walls, and make a space truly feel like mine.

I won’t be packing my entire life into my collection of random totes and huge IKEA bags in six months to start over in a new state. I won’t be hunting for my next gig before I’m halfway through my current one. I won’t be dwelling on that heavy, daunting question: How will I make friends in a place where I only plan to stay for a few months?

I am ready for slow it down. I am ready to romanticize this gorgeous landscape of afternoon boat rides, eclectic cabins, rocky shorelines, and down-to-earth, midwestern people.

So why does craving peace feel so threatening?

It’s the Damn Phone!

I’m sure you can guess the culprit behind that lingering sense of threat: the loud, performative theater of our online lives.

It feels like social media has become the default scapegoat for all of our generation’s anxieties, and I get it—the critique is starting to feel repetitive. But there is a stubborn thread of truth there. We have collectively agreed to glamorize a spontaneous, chaotic lifestyle of constant, breathless motion. Our feeds reward the transient, the unanchored, and the packing-up-and-starting-over. We double-tap on van-lifers waking up in a new mountain pass every morning and watch videos of people running away to remote corners of the world. In this landscape, staying put can easily feel like falling behind.

But I am realizing that these grand, cinematic adventures don’t have to exist at the expense of a grounded home base. A passport stamp is not a prerequisite for a meaningful life, and a suitcase shouldn’t be our only comfort zone.

You can love the horizon while still appreciating the quiet of your own porch. You can crave the deep, wild ocean while still finding absolute peace in the stillness of an inland sea. I am going to try my hardest to build that balance for myself.

I am entirely guilty of falling for it. The wanderlust is real, and it is deeply rooted in me. I still want to backpack the rugged peaks of the Dolomites with my girlfriends, I still want to feel the salt spray on my face as I sail through the Caribbean on a liveaboard, and of course, I still want to enjoy a dreamy European summer like the rest of the girlies.

Now, this is merely just an update on my life, but I hope anyone taking the time to read this can find a shred of familiarity in my story, a sliver of peace from it, or a shared understanding in my sentiment.