Leap and the net will appear.
This quote was copied down by my sister into a small Moleskine travel guide to Barcelona, just before I left to study abroad. She wanted to help comfort me and inspire me as I drifted into the great unknown, and I felt these words with me so often as I explored new countries, different cultures, foreign languages, and weird meats on sticks.
What she may not have realized is that this feeling stayed with me when I returned to familiar shores and had a decidedly new outlook on life, and the world.
This feeling of rational spontaneity is what led me to pack up my “life” and move to Brooklyn with no place to live or any clue about life in the city, to transition my life to teaching abroad in Madrid, to quitting my career in fashion to be a writer.
I love looking back now and seeing just how that net appeared. Moving to New York, the net became the energy that I drew from living in such a lively city and knowing that this was the place for me. In Spain, the net was finding my voice and finally realizing that I wanted to be a writer. And with Brooklyn, I’m Trying, it’s the sporadic messages of support I receive, it’s scrolling through my website and feeling so damn proud of my work, it’s laughing out loud at something I wrote years ago. It’s seeing some weird feathery earrings for sale.
This reflection is so important as we get caught up in the panicky “what the fuck am I doing with my life” pattern of thinking. Just stop. Inhale. Think of so many leaps you’ve taken and the proverbial nets that were thankfully and unexpectedly there to break your fall.
The onset of Spring inevitably gives me an invigorating feeling of excitement. I can’t wait to see what happens next; what leaps we are all inherently propelled to take, and the nets that will find us when we do.
I hope that when you start to feel misguided, stagnant, stuck… that you spend some time reflecting and be thankful; relentlessly chase after your passions, and when in doubt, leap. And trust that at least you’re moving forward, you’re getting closer, you’re getting warmer.
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