Sit Still

I can’t sit still.

In the span of three months I’ve gone from Mexico City to a rodeo, Santa Barbara to Big Bear and now here to Arlington, Virginia. I keep moving. Mountains to desert to beach to East Coast spring. Anywhere but there.

“There” as in home.

“There” as in the present moment.

If I have downtime, my instinct is to fill it: a yoga class, a meditation or workshop, a spontaneous flight..a weekend bag tossed into the trunk before I’ve fully exhaled from the last return. I tell myself I’m curious. Adventurous. Expansive. And I am; but, sometimes I wonder if I’m also afraid of the quiet. 

Spring makes it easy to justify. The air shifts and suddenly everything feels possible. Post-winter energy hums under the skin. The world thaws and I do too. I see the season open like a door and I run through it booking trips late at night, saying yes before considering the why.

Somewhere between unpacking and repacking, I’ve noticed a pattern of mistaking motion for growth. If I’m moving, I must be evolving. If I am exploring, I must be expanding. But Arlington didn’t ask anything dramatic of me. It didn’t sparkle. It didn’t distract me. It just met me in stillness.

And stillness, for me, is louder than a new city.

There’s a particular discomfort in staying put long enough to hear your own thoughts without the romance of a new backdrop. At home, the laundry waits. The inbox waits. The unglamorous parts of life line up politely for attention. No one claps when you sit quietly in your own space.

In Arlington, I didn’t have my usual distractions. I walked. I journaled. I noticed how quickly I reached for my phone to search for the next thing. The next flight. The next experience. The next version of myself.

I’m beginning to see that my mission of “trying something new every month” isn’t just about novelty. It’s about identity. And I like being the girl who goes. 

But what if growth also looks like staying?

What if it’s letting an ordinary Tuesday stretch out without interruption? What if it’s sitting on my own couch long enough to feel the restlessness rise? I want a life that tastes like different cities and different air. But I’m learning that escape and exploration can look similar from the outside. The difference is intention. I feel both full and slightly untethered. Like I had been skimming the surface of water instead of submerging. Arlington held up a mirror and asked me if I could be somewhere without planning my exit. 

I’m still practicing the answer.