My Sabbatical Story: Why I Started Solaris

At some point, I stopped asking myself the most important question.

Not: How is my project tracker looking? or Did I hit my KPIs?

But: How am I?

As an actual human being with a body that occasionally needed things like food, breathing room, and a reason to get out of bed that had nothing to do with a deliverable.

For more than a decade in tech, I lived by an unspoken code. My grandad used to say, if you are on time, you are late. 

He meant it as a lesson in preparation and respect. 

Somewhere along the way, I merged that wisdom with Silicon Valley's greatest export: if you are not available around the clock, someone else will be. 

So I took calls at 2 AM because someone in another time zone needed an answer right now. 

Constant motion felt like the only proof that I mattered. I thought a weekend away or an extra hour of sleep would fix the bone-deep exhaustion. 

Surprise, surprise. It never did.

The Plot Twist

This is a tale as old as time. Or at least as old as corporate restructuring.

My role was “eliminated”. You know, the one I literally lived for. The only thing that got me out of bed.

Then, one surreal Thursday morning, I faced a choice I had never really faced before.

I could start hunting for the next position immediately, the way I always had. Or I could do something I had literally never done in my adult life.

Actually stop.

It was terrifying. What kind of ambitious person just stops? But in the quiet that followed, I finally began to see just how depleted I had become.

What That Burnout Looked Like for Me

Burnout isn’t always dramatic. At least mine certainly didn’t arrive with a flashing warning sign telling me it was time to slow down. Like a lot of life, it happened gradually––and while I kept insisting I was fine.

My brain got foggy and my body started staging a rebellion. I felt increasingly disconnected from myself. And because I was still functioning, I kept going.

Then my bloodwork came back.

Iron at 19. Ferritin at 6. Vitamin D at 12.

My doctor looked at the results and told me what chronic stress could do to a body over time, and suddenly, the way I had been feeling made a lot more sense.

Life had started to feel like moving through quicksand with no solid ground in sight. And the hardest part was that I knew something wasn’t right. I could feel it. But knowing something needed to change and having the freedom to change it were two different things. I still had bills to pay, responsibilities to manage, and a life that required me to keep going.

Trial and Error… Heavy on the Error

I would love to say I responded by designing the perfect sabbatical.

I did not.

I had no real plan at all. In fact, I overplanned some parts while completely winging others.

I packed up my bags and traveled to Scottsdale, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Sedona, Maui, and Joshua Tree. Places that practically forced me to slow down. 

But the real work often happened in much less picturesque moments.

Therapy sessions where I ugly cried. Long, silent walks where I sat with my own mind without corporate noise filling the silence.

And the gradual, uncomfortable process of untangling who I was from what I produced.

But oh gosh, nobody tells you about the guilt.

Even lying on a beautiful beach, doing exactly what my depleted body seemed to need, a voice kept whispering: Is this just laziness? What about your résumé gap? Shouldn’t you be doing something productive right now?

That voice had gotten much deeper into my psyche than I knew, or cared to admit.

Rest became less about simply doing nothing and more about questioning a deeply embedded belief that my worth as a human being was determined by my output as a worker.

Those are not the same thing.

I know that now. But it took me most of a year to really feel it.

What I Learned, Place by Place

Scottsdale taught me to stop. Sometimes falling apart is what finally makes rest non-negotiable. Real rest wasn’t a pretty spa day. For me, it looked more like a full system shutdown.

Nicaragua reminded me to breathe. It also showed me how automatically I made myself smaller to keep other people comfortable. Old habits die hard. They even find you in the jungle.

Costa Rica reminded me that plans are just that. Plans. I got sick on my birthday and somehow laughed harder than I had in months at something I will not fully explain here. My body knew what it needed better than my itinerary did.

Sedona helped me trust myself again. I started making small decisions based on what felt right rather than what looked right.

Maui gave me permission to want things again. Not because they were productive or impressive but simply because they brought me joy.

Joshua Tree brought me back to the question of what came next. For the first time, I had clarity about what I wanted to build when I returned home.

Why Solaris Exists

When I finally felt ready to return, I knew I wanted to approach my time differently. I also kept thinking about everything I had learned the hard way.

Would things have turned out differently if I had thought more carefully about what I needed before I left? What if I had understood the guilt that can come with slowing down before I actually did it? What if I had planned for rest with the same care I once reserved for work?

And what if there were a way to prepare for meaningful time away without planning every moment of it?

Those questions eventually became the basis of Solaris Global Pathways.

With Solaris, I’m not trying to recreate my sabbatical. I want to help you create enough space to consider what you need—and thoughtfully prepare for the practical realities that make that space possible.

Stepping away shouldn’t require a crisis.

You shouldn’t have to completely fall apart before giving yourself permission to create space for yourself.

Sometimes, you simply need enough space to hear yourself again.

That’s why I started Solaris.

The Desert as a Teacher: Lessons from Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree is all stillness and sky. The desert doesn't rush to meet you. It just stands there, vast and quiet and a little prickly, waiting for you to slow down too.

Driving in, I felt the shift immediately. Mountains rose like sleeping giants, and the horizon stretched out with no end in sight. By the time the first Joshua tree appeared, crooked limbs reaching skyward like a tipsy yogi attempting Warrior I, I was already softer. My rental car agent, apparently feeling I needed botanical context, informed me they aren't actually trees. They're yucca plants. Mormon settlers named them after the biblical Joshua, arms raised in prayer. They're endangered now, thanks to climate change. Nothing like a little botany mixed with existential dread to start the day.

Golf courses and retirement torture

I stayed at a spa hotel about forty minutes from the park. The spa itself, I never used. But I discovered the golf course made an excellent morning walking path: round and round, slow and steady, like meditation but with better landscaping and more confused golfers.

On day three, one of them stopped me. "You don't golf?"

"Not today," I said, implying I might tomorrow. I absolutely would not.

He nodded approvingly. "Smart. This is retirement torture." We both laughed. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing those small human moments, the kind that don't require anything from you except to show up and find them funny.

The desert's paradox

Every day I chose a different trail. Barker Dam, where there was no water. Hidden Valley, nature's abstract sculpture garden. The Cholla Cactus Garden, home to teddy bear cacti, the cruelest nickname imaginable since they will absolutely stab you if you get too close.

"That's the desert for you," a woman next to me said, watching me eye the chollas warily. "Everything here wants to poke you, bite you, or dehydrate you. But look how it glows."

That became the paradox I fell in love with. Ruthless and radiant. Harsh and holy. It demands respect and hands you perspective in return.

Stars, awe, and remembering to look up

Joshua Tree is a designated Dark Sky Park, and the Milky Way puts on a full performance. I stood there with my neck craned, laughing out loud at the sheer audacity of it. How had I gone so long without looking up? I'd been living so horizontally, consumed by screens and deadlines, that I'd forgotten awe exists. Free of charge, available whenever you stop moving long enough to notice it.

Letters, fire, and letting go

Evenings were for writing letters I would never send. To old jobs, old friendships, old versions of myself who tried so hard. Some pages I filled completely; others I barely started before the tears came. Most ended up in the fire pit, curling into ash under the desert stars.

Letting go doesn't always need a big ceremony. Sometimes you just need honesty, heat, and a safe place to burn it all down. I was grieving the version of myself who believed she had to prove her worth through overwork. The desert helped me say goodbye to her and, more importantly, helped me forgive her too.

What clarity actually feels like

By the end of my time in Joshua Tree, I felt clear. Not fixed, not arriving with a ten-point plan for the rest of my life. Just clear about what I wanted to build next, and about the fact that ambition and ease didn't have to be at odds.

On my last morning, I watched the sunrise and noticed a tiny Joshua tree seedling pushing up through solid rock. Fragile. Patient. Stubbornly alive. The desert doesn't demand transformation. It just shows you how to grow where you're planted, even when the conditions are less than ideal.

I left with a plan to build something meaningful and the energy to actually start. That's what I brought home. That's what became Solaris.

Papaya, Ginger Chews, and a Different Way to Carry Life

Maui greeted me differently than anywhere else I'd been. The air arrived so soft it felt like it had its own language: slow down, you're here now.

From the moment I stepped off the plane, my shoulders dropped about two inches. My curls immediately declared independence from any styling plan I'd brought with me, and I decided to stop fighting them. If Maui could show up unhurried and unapologetic, so could I.

What a small wellness resort actually feels like

I'd chosen a small resort tucked into the trees. Intentional, thoughtful, and refreshingly unpretentious. An old-fashioned key instead of a card that never works on the first try. Soaps scented with plumeria. A bed that passed its nap-worthiness test with honors.

Each morning began with papaya, tea, and silence. Papaya so bright it deserved its own filter. Tea that tasted like an exhale. Silence that felt full rather than empty: birdsong, rustling palms, and the occasional question of whether that was my stomach or the geckos.

The Road to Hana and the beauty of being a little carsick

I drove the Road to Hana because you do. They tell you it's about the journey, not the destination, which is true unless your stomach disagrees. Breathtaking waterfalls, lush forests, roughly six thousand curves. By the end I had one hand on the wheel and the other on my ginger chews, alternating between awe and please let this be the last curve. I would do it again. Some beauty is worth being a little carsick for.

Permission to want things again

By this point in the sabbatical, I'd learned a lot about rest, about letting go, about trusting myself. But Maui brought something I hadn't expected: permission to want things again. To desire experiences instead of just avoiding pain. To seek joy actively instead of waiting for it to find me.

I joined yoga in a yurt because I wanted to, not because someone told me I should. I journaled on a wooden deck because it felt good. At a candlelit writing circle, the prompt was write about where you feel most yourself, and what came out surprised me. I was craving a rhythm where drive and stillness could coexist, where ambition didn't have to mean sacrificing myself to get somewhere.

I caught myself thinking about my career without dread for the first time in longer than I could remember. What it might look like if I built it differently. The return of ambition, in a form that didn't require destroying myself to sustain it.

A café that knew my order and a ukulele I could not play

A small café in Paia became my unofficial second home. After a few visits, the staff started greeting me with the subtle nod of café royalty. Same order, right? It's a small, specific kind of belonging: a place that knows your breakfast before you ask.

I also bought a cheap ukulele. Did I master it? Not even close. But there was something joyful about fumbling through three chords, laughing at myself, realizing that trying was enough. I'd forgotten that was allowed.

Leaving lighter

By the end, my body felt looser, more at home in itself. My thoughts moved less like a rushing river and more like clouds drifting across an open sky.

On my last evening, I sat in the garden and whispered, I will miss this place. I packed small things to take home: local honey, handmade soap, a tiny turtle carving. I noticed how little of what I'd brought I'd actually needed. Two sundresses, a swimsuit, and bare feet had been plenty.

As the plane lifted off, I pressed my forehead to the window and thought about what came next. Not with anxiety. With curiosity.

Tuning Forks, Bowing Deer, and the Art of Doing Nothing at Enchantment Resort

Sedona was where I finally stopped trying so hard to heal myself and just let it happen. Which, as it turns out, involved a lot more tuning forks and philosophical debates about crystals than I'd expected.

By this point I'd been traveling for months, bouncing between countries and experiences, still carrying this subtle pressure to have some kind of breakthrough. You know that feeling when people keep asking "Did you find yourself?" and you want to say "Well, I found a really good breakfast burrito place — does that count?" Sedona was different. The red rocks basically said, you can stop performing your healing now. We've got this.

What happens when you finally get still enough

My first night, I couldn't sleep — not from anxiety, but from pure wonder. The stars were so bright I thought someone had left the cosmic high beams on. I wandered outside in my hotel robe around 2 a.m. and nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice said, "If you're looking for the Big Dipper, it's over there." An older gentleman, also in a robe, casually pointing at constellations like he was giving directions to the grocery store. Twenty years of coming to Sedona, he said, and he still couldn't sleep the first night. Too much beauty. My neck hurt the next day from looking up. It was worth it.

The deer that changed everything

The real shift happened when I stopped trying to make something happen. I was sitting on my patio one afternoon, drinking tea and feeling mildly guilty about how unproductive I was being, when a deer walked right up to me, looked me straight in the eye, and did what I can only describe as a slow, deliberate bow.

I sat there blinking. Then I said "thank you" out loud, which felt completely ridiculous and exactly right at the same time. I didn't need to earn that moment. It just happened because I was finally still enough to be present for it.

Sedona's spiritual side and a tuning fork I did not expect

Sedona has a way of making the mystical feel completely normal. I overheard a passionate debate at a coffee shop about whether selenite can be cleansed in moonlight — it escalated, as much as any conversation can escalate when both parties pause for centering breaths, before one woman said, "You know what? We might both be right. Different selenite, different needs. Like people." I almost applauded.

Later, a woman at a scenic overlook pulled out a tuning fork and started harmonizing with the breeze. She asked if I wanted to try. Before I could politely decline, I was holding this surprisingly heavy fork, tapping it against my palm, holding it near the red rocks. I felt a faint hum somewhere behind my sternum — the kind you can't quite trust but can't quite dismiss either. "The rocks are always singing," she said. "We just forget to listen." I seriously considered buying my own tuning fork. I downloaded an app instead. Millennial compromise.

What actually shifted

The real change was subtle. I stopped checking my phone constantly. I ate meals without multitasking. I took naps without the guilt soundtrack running underneath. One morning I hiked to an overlook, set up my chair with grand plans to journal something profound, wrote exactly three words — I am here — and sat for an hour watching shadows move across the valley. It was the most satisfying writing session I'd had in years.

I extended my stay. Twice. Because my body said not yet, and I listened instead of arguing with it. Sedona gave me back not answers, not a plan, but the ability to trust my own instincts again — to make choices based on what felt alive rather than what looked right.

The bright pink shorts and letting yourself be seen

Looking back through my photos, I noticed I'd unconsciously packed only bright colors — hot pink, teal, magenta, a complete departure from my recent all-black-everything phase. One day, wearing particularly vibrant pink shorts, I heard a man say something to his girlfriend that was clearly about my outfit. Her response, loud enough for me to catch, was perfect:

"Let her live."

That phrase followed me for the rest of the trip. I thought about it on hikes, in coffee shop debates, even during my one slightly underwhelming tuning fork session. Let her sleep in. Let her wear hot pink at thirty-eight. Let her sit on a patio doing nothing until a deer wanders up and decides she's worth a bow. Not a sign, not a breakthrough, not a five-step plan. Just somebody's girlfriend, loud enough to overhear, granting permission I didn't know I was waiting for.

Sometimes Your Body Knows Better Than Your Pinterest Board: Lessons from the Nicoya Peninsula

Before Costa Rica, I scrolled through Pinterest, absorbing images of women doing sunrise yoga on pristine beaches, zip-lining through emerald canopies, swimming under secret waterfalls. I arrived with expectations I had no business having. My body had other ideas entirely.

What nobody tells you about stress leaving your body

I'd been fighting something since Nicaragua — a scratchy throat, an ache behind my eyes, that particular heaviness that signals your immune system is staging a quiet rebellion. By the time I reached my hotel, I was properly sick, the kind of sick where breathing feels like work.

I'd read about this: how the body, once it registers safety, starts releasing what it's been holding. Chronic stress suppresses the immune system, and the moment you stop running, the bill comes due. Understanding this intellectually did not make it feel any less cosmically unfair. "You couldn't have done this at home?" I whispered to my body as I collapsed onto the bed. "With Netflix and takeout?" My body had its own agenda and was not taking questions.

My birthday, alone, eating fish stew

My birthday was day two. I rallied enough to buy cold medicine and drag myself to dinner at the hotel restaurant, where I ate fish stew while the sun slipped into the sea. The staff didn't know it was my birthday. I didn't tell them. No cake, no candles — just me and my congestion having a quiet celebration. I want to say it was peaceful and intentional. It was also just a little sad. Both things were true at the same time, which I was slowly learning to hold.

The housekeeper, the waiter, and what small kindness does

Adriana, the housekeeper, would knock gently and tsk softly when she found me still in bed. She filled the water carafe without being asked, and once, left a small bunch of flowers. I never asked why. I think she could tell I needed something, even if she couldn't name it.

Carlos, the waiter, brought breakfast on wooden trays — fruit cut into stars, warm bread, black coffee needing nothing. "The soup will find you," he said once with a wink. "No need for you to find the soup." I think about that line a lot. How much of our exhaustion comes from always being the one who finds the soup — who solves, who initiates, who carries the logistical weight of everything. Sometimes the most restorative thing is to be somewhere things come to you for a change.

On the third night, a thunderstorm rolled in, and the neighbors decided to celebrate it very enthusiastically on their patio. I will not elaborate. But lying sick in a wellness resort while the people next door are clearly having the time of their lives is a particular kind of comedy the universe reserves for special occasions. I laughed until I cried — real laughter, the kind that shakes your whole body. The first in weeks. Even sick, it felt like medicine.

What the beach gave me when I finally got there

By day four, my fever broke. I made it to the shore, lay in the sand, and let the sun do its work. I watched horses trot down the beach, moving without urgency or apology. A woman selling bracelets stopped and tied a deep blue one, threaded with tiny shells, around my wrist. She said something in Spanish I didn't fully catch. I googled it later — something about finding your way home. I wondered if home was a place or a way of being. I'm still working that one out.

What I actually learned

I did not zip-line. I did not find a waterfall. I did not post a single enviable photo. I rested. I journaled quiet observations instead of gratitude lists, and I let my body lead for the first time in longer than I could remember.

As I packed to leave, I caught my reflection and paused. My shoulders had dropped. My face looked less braced — softer, clearer, like I'd put something down. The driver said Costa Rica calls back those who need her. I believed him. Not necessarily the place, but the feeling of getting out of your own way long enough for your body to do what it had been trying to do all along.

A Retreat, a Sloth, and the Habit of Making Myself Smaller

By the time I landed, after a canceled flight rerouted through Miami and twelve hours of restless layover under fluorescent airport lights, the excitement I'd once felt for this retreat had curdled into dread. I sat near Gate D23 with my phone charger, my journal, and a half-eaten protein bar, wondering if the universe was sending a firm message.

A woman nearby was making a friendship bracelet out of boredom. "First time to Nicaragua?" she asked.

"Wellness retreat," I said.

"Ah. Searching for yourself?"

"More like trying to remember where I left me."

We laughed, a little too loudly for the hushed terminal. She handed me a neon green bracelet before I boarded. A quiet token of shared purgatory. I wore it the whole trip.

What the drive taught me before the retreat even started

Something shifted on the drive from the border. The air was warm and heavy, the kind that wraps around you like an unspoken welcome. My driver, Manuel, had the weathered face of someone who's seen everything and judged none of it. "You will feel different when you leave," he said simply, as if reading a weather forecast rather than my emotional future.

We passed a man walking his pig on a leash. Not a small, Instagram-worthy pig, but a massive, mud-caked creature trotting alongside him with surprising dignity. "That's Fernando and Juanito," Manuel said. "They walk every day at this time." Of course the pig had a name. Everything here moved with its own natural rhythm, unbothered by urgency. I noticed my shoulders drop for the first time in months.

When you bring all your old habits to a new jungle

The retreat was beautiful. Villas built into a hillside overlooking the Pacific, bougainvillea in fuchsia and coral, open-air architecture that seemed to grow from the landscape. I thought, finally, I can relax. That lasted about five minutes.

Most of the group was from a boxing gym in Harlem and moved as a tight unit. I felt like an outsider immediately, and every old pattern activated. I became overly agreeable. I made myself smaller. I chose the small pool by our villa instead of the big communal one, just to avoid a particular energy I didn't want to navigate. I went into town when I wanted to stay at the resort, because someone else had suggested it and declining felt like making a statement. I had traveled thousands of miles and packed my people-pleasing right alongside my yoga mat.

One night I wrote in my journal: stay with yourself. Do not abandon your peace to make others comfortable. I wrote it because I needed the reminder. I'd been watching myself do the exact thing I came here to stop doing, and I couldn't quite stop. If you're a people pleaser, a fixer, someone who has spent years tending to everyone else first, a wellness retreat will not automatically switch that off. The patterns follow you. What changes is that you start to notice them in real time. And noticing, I was learning, was its own kind of progress.

Sixteen hours of sleep and a sloth outside my window

My first night, I slept for sixteen hours straight and woke up imprinted on the sheets like a crime scene chalk outline, groggy but lighter. My body had finally stopped negotiating.

A few days later I looked out my villa window and saw a sloth stretched across a branch, completely unbothered. I'd been half-jokingly calling the sloth my spirit animal since the sabbatical began, shorthand for the slow, ungraceful version of rest I'd been practicing. And here one was, outside my window, like a wink from the universe.

What breathwork actually did

The retreat centered on breathwork, and having done yoga for twenty years, I thought I knew what I was in for. I didn't. The facilitator guided us through patterns that, while familiar in theory, my body had apparently forgotten how to access fully. Twenty minutes in, my hands curled involuntarily and my chest heaved with sobs I didn't understand. I'd been holding my breath for years. Not literally. But close enough. That session didn't fix anything. It gave me a small release, a loosening of something tightly wound, and sometimes that's all you need to keep going.

Dulce, who taught me about unapologetic rest

On the last evening we had a sunset horseback ride. My horse was named Dulce, which means Sweet, though her temperament suggested the name was aspirational. She lay down in the sand multiple times during the ride, defiant and completely unapologetic. She was tired, and she wasn't performing otherwise for anyone watching. I admired her for it in a way I couldn't quite articulate at the time.

What I was actually carrying home

On my birthday eve, the group surprised me at breakfast with a muffin and a candle, and, in true Black fashion, someone pulled out a phone and played Stevie Wonder right there at the table. I laughed, shaking my head, feeling embarrassed and deeply seen at the same time.

When we crossed into Costa Rica, the group headed to their flights and I got into another car alone, heading to my next stop. My new driver asked how the retreat went.

"I don't know yet," I said honestly. "But I think I remembered how to breathe."

He nodded. "That sounds like a beginning."

It was. I'd brought every old pattern with me to Nicaragua. I'd also watched myself do it, in real time, clearly enough to write it down. And that mattered.

The Week I Became a Professional Paperweight in Scottsdale

I showed up in Scottsdale with a vague but hopeful plan: transformation, peace, something good. The resort looked like it had been designed specifically for wellness influencer content — all terra cotta and carefully arranged cacti, with that signature hotel scent that probably had a name like Sonoran Serenity. None of it worked on me.

My room was the darkest cave I've encountered in all my travels. While everyone else was presumably soaking up the famous Arizona sunshine, I was living like a vampire in what felt like a self-imposed sensory deprivation chamber. And I was the star exhibit.

When your body calls in sick to life

The pressure to enjoy this expensive trip was crushing. I'd go down to the hotel restaurant and see other guests looking so purposeful, like they'd arrived with a plan and were actively executing it. I would last twenty minutes before retreating to my room, leaving behind an eighteen-dollar smoothie because I could not handle all that collective enthusiasm.

My body, which usually runs on stubbornness and caffeine, was completely tapped out. Sleep felt less like rest and more like an emergency system shutdown. I would wake up with no idea what time it was, sometimes what day. My brain felt like it was trying to think through cement. The idea of going outside seemed about as realistic as climbing Everest in flip-flops. I was basically a very expensive human paperweight.

The guilt nobody warned me about

My brain would not stop running the numbers. The hotel cost. The flights. The eighteen-dollar smoothie sitting abandoned on the table. And here I was, lying in a dark room like a wellness failure. A book sat unread. My suitcase stayed mostly packed, because unpacking felt like too much commitment to being somewhere. The gap between what I thought this should look like and what was actually happening felt enormous. Where was the journaling breakthrough? The sunrise yoga? But somewhere in all that emptiness, I started to understand what was actually happening.

What rest actually is

I had been thinking about rest wrong. I thought it meant sleep, or a weekend away, or just not working. Real rest, the kind you need after years of running on fumes, is your body staging an intervention. It's a complete system shutdown that happens when there's literally nothing left in the tank.

My nervous system had been stuck in survival mode for a long time, and it had finally given up the fight. I was finally letting myself fall apart, which turns out to be a very different thing from resting. If you're burned out and you think a few days somewhere nice will make it go away, I want to gently tell you: it might not. It might just give your body enough safety to finally show you how depleted you actually are. That's not failure. That's the beginning of something.

The small shift on the last day

On my last morning, I woke up actually wanting food with flavor. I ordered huevos rancheros and tasted it properly for the first time all week — the spice, the egg, the way it all came together. A small signal that I was still in there somewhere.

Later, I cracked the curtains open just a sliver and sat in that thin blade of light, watching dust motes drift through the beam. They were just existing, moved by forces larger than themselves, going nowhere in particular. That felt right, in a way I didn't try too hard to explain.

When I checked out, the receptionist asked how my stay was. I thought about saying something reassuring. Instead I said, "It was a start." And I meant it. The desert held space for my complete collapse without judgment. It just sat there, harsh and patient and vast, like it had seen this before and was in no hurry. I still had no plan, no clarity, no vision for what came next. But the ground beneath me had shifted, just slightly. And that turned out to be enough to keep going.