On our first date ever, Jaime took me to a small restaurant called Rincon Asturiano. Although there wasn’t anything remarkable about the place, it was extremely special to me. He had gone out of his way to find the only restaurant in Miami that served food from Asturias, the Spanish region my family is from.

This photo’s bright tropical colors stood out to me this week. I’ve been going through old photos, something I like to do every once in a while. Life looks different now. The colors are still bright, but they’re vibrant earth tones home to the Smokies, not the familiar deep hues of the tropics. As I write this, I’m on our porch. The loud crack signifying a tree is falling interrupts the steady hum of birds and bugs. How do I know it’s a tree falling? I’ve come to recognize the sound from living in a national park.

This is the perfect place to start over was not what I thought when we first came here, Asheville and then Bryson City. There was always a lingering sense of transience in North Carolina. Maybe that’s how I fooled myself into doing it. It didn’t strike me that this decision feels like part of a plan until a few weeks ago when the dust settled on our move, furniture in place, walls painted, that I stood in our living room and it hit me: This is the perfect place to start over.

Have you ever had that feeling? I’m referring to a moment when everything inside you knows it’s time for your next great evolution. I couldn’t be present to that feeling earlier this year in the chaos of moving and renovations. Presence is the only way any of us can tap into our internal guide, who always knows what’s happening. Human beings come equipped with everything they need, we muddy it and then turn outside ourselves when there’s never a reason to.

So, now that i’ve been able to catch my breath, it’s on this porch looking at photos and being fully present to my surroundings that I know my next chapter has begun. And it will look totally different, which can seem scary when the past chapters were exquisite, but it’s also exciting. Before me is a book of blank pages where I will get to create an epic story. I can be whoever I want. Life can look however I want it to. This realization actually gives me chills.

So this is life lately: slowing down. The year has been a slow burn for me, it feels as if we’re just beginning and in reality it’s Easter tomorrow. We’re in Q 2, well into 2019. That’s okay though, I’m in the perfect place to start over and in this new change, taking time is not only okay, but in fact encouraged. This next phase is not a hack or a simple three-step how-to, it’s real growth… and that my friends, takes time. There are no short cuts and I honestly wouldn’t want there to be.