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I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since my last blog post. I think about blogging so often – it really is a form of therapy and it was such a huge part of my journey and transformation in 2015 that I feel I’ve gipped those of you that kept up with me a little bit. Life has been nothing but continuously transformational. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything I went through in 2015 was in preparation for what was to come. So, for those of you who follow me on social media or know me in real life, none of what I’m about to share will be too much news, so you can skip ahead to the end, which is really where the meat of this particular blog will be laid out for you.

April was really the pinnacle that started a snowball effect of change for the rest of the year. I passed my personal trainer’s certification and started working at Body by Hannah, which is where many of you will remember was the studio I was a client at during my fitness journey. For over 5 months, I would get up almost every morning at 5am and get ready for my day which normally started by training clients at the studio, followed by a full 8 hour work day at my 9-5pm job before I would go back to the studio for 1-3 hours and train more clients. Every day that passed, I knew I was doing what I loved by being in the studio and training clients and soaking up knowledge. However, I was also completely drained mentally and the stress of my desk job was causing my health to suffer and my anxiety to sky rocket to an all time high.

After many tears and deliberation and going back and forth and praying to make the right decision, I turned in my resignation to my full-time job in late summer and marked September 1, 2016 as a brand new chapter in my life as a full-time personal trainer. It was scary, but in the best way possible. I knew I was making the right decision – despite a lot of protest and “opinions” – I felt completely at peace and I was fortunate enough to have those close to me support me and push me to do what I knew I had needed to do for a long time.

In October, the love of my life asked me to be his wife (more on that in another blog!) and in December we found a beautiful house that will be our home and in just a few months, we’ll be married and I will making another new journey as a wife and in a new city. Which, leads me to this blog post. This week has hit me hard in the feels – I’ve spent almost every day crying for one reason or another. I think it’s hitting me that I’ll be leaving behind a lot of things with this new chapter of my life. I’ll be commuting to the studio twice a week, but I won’t live in my hometown anymore. I’m leaving behind everything I’ve ever known for thirty-one years of my life.

It’s funny – I spent most of my teens and all of my twenties plotting the day I would make my escape from my hometown. I was going to live in California or New York or move to Italy and live abroad for a year while writing my little heart out and drinking coffee at a side street cafe. Or, I was going to, ironically, move to Knoxville (my future new city) and work at a newspaper and live in a cute downtown apartment and walk everywhere.

Then, I changed the inside of my life and stopped trying to change the outside and I became happy and content. I stopped plotting my escape and became satisfied with what I was doing and where I was doing it at. God sure does have a funny sense of humor. He lets us get just comfortable enough before it’s time to grow a little more – each growth spurt a little less painful than the last, but still so many lessons that come along with it.

I hope no one reads this with a sense of dread – it’s quite the opposite. I’ve never felt more prepared for this new chapter in my life, but the little girl/introvert/only child/creature of habit inside of me sure has felt a little weepy this week. I look around at my little apartment that I moved into 6 years ago and in the same breath having bright eyes at where I will lovingly put my treasures at my cozy new home, I feel a pang of sentimentality of the leaving behind. One of my dear friends wrote me a letter when I was going through my “transformation” and said that it was only natural that grieving the “old” me would be a part of the process and I suspect that is what I feel now – a slight sense of grieving for the memories and the hard work and the growth. It was all of those things that brought me to this moment in my life that is better than anything I could have written for myself.

Never think that just because you go through journeys and changes in your life that there will be an “end” – there is no definite point in our life (other than death) when we get to clap our hands together and say, “Okay, this work of my life is finished.” I’ve made that mistake before – striving for that pinnacle, reaching the goal, and looking over the mountains from which I came only to look forward and see many more mountains. Mountains with beautiful scenery and shimmering lakes – we can’t just look at the peaks and miss out on all of the beauty that lies in climbing them.

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was…”- Ransom Riggs