I’ve spent a long time telling myself that wanting less movement meant wanting less life.
For the last two years, I learned how to carry myself.
How to arrive, adapt, leave.
How to build routines out of unfamiliar streets and temporary desks.
I became very good at starting over.
And for a while, that felt like freedom.
But somewhere along the way, the metric changed.
I started asking myself what might have happened if I didn’t move so much.
If I had stayed long enough in one place to let roots grow, instead of just learning how to pack efficiently.
If I stayed long enough to build something slowly, imperfectly and all the way through.
The cost of constant motion
This past year, I have lived 1-3 months in each country.
I was always moving.
Always setting something up ~
a new space,
a new system,
a new version of myself.
On paper, it looked productive.
In reality, it was fragmented.
My attention was scattered across cities, time zones, and unfinished intentions.
My mind felt less sharp.
Deep work felt harder.
For a long time, I framed this scattering as failure.
Now I see it differently.
It was a phase.
A necessary one.
Growth doesn’t always look like accumulation.
Sometimes it looks like motion ~
restless, searching, unresolved.
And sometimes, it looks like learning exactly what constant movement costs you.
The Shift to Depth
In that learning, another realisation arrived.
I don’t just want stability in place.
I want stability in presence.
I am noticing a pull toward continuity.
Not to be saved.
Not to fill a void.
But to be known.
Someone who stays while things are still becoming.
Someone who doesn’t confuse stillness with stagnation.
Admitting this felt vulnerable at first.
I worried it sounded like weakness… like longing meant I’d lost my edge.
But I see it now.
Wanting consistency isn’t lack.
It’s readiness.
It’s what happens when you’ve proven to yourself that you can stand alone,
and then decide you don’t want to do everything alone anymore.
The next honest chapter
I don’t regret the years of movement. They taught me adaptability, courage, self-trust.
They showed me who I am when nothing is familiar.
But I also know now what I’m asking for next.
For the coming year. I’m asking for focus.
For a place long enough to grow.
For the steadiness to start things, and see them through.
And maybe, alongside that steadiness, someone who stays.
Not forever promised. Just present.
I am done with velocity.
I am ready for depth.
