Career Change and Identity: Right Now I Pick the Beach

I’m in Honolulu this week looking at what living here might look like. Not a trip but an opportunity to stay longer, solo and be in one place long enough to know whether I’d want to wake up in it for at least a year. I’ve actually been considering this move for two years now, thinking about it before I even retired from federal service. But sometimes, when you’re in the midst of so much turmoil its hard to know if that was “then Cynthia” or if it still fits with “now Cynthia.”

I worked on the Sojourn & Soirée site somewhere over the Pacific on the way here and then I closed the laptop. This weekend included long walks on the beach at six in the morning when its still bare, an iced tea with Mahalo written on the side in the lushness of one of my favorite Starbucks locations, several Pilates classes, poke I ate standing up, and the Pride parade going past under the balcony while I had my feet up on the railing enjoying the view of the both the parade and the ocean.

Four days before I got on the plane I was in Napa with Nina, then recording a new podcast episode of Next Chapter, Anywhere, questioning if I’m on the right path, and could everybody just provide me some validation and respond back. NaturallyI’d prefer the validation in the form of a paycheck. Failing that I’ll take people’s kind words.

I went from being a diplomat to a Pilates instructor and people’s faces tell you a lot when you say that. Some of them ask what that even is. The ones who’ve known me longest have decided I’ve been a little bit crazy my whole life, so this is just the next crazy thing (which is easier than asking, and I’d probably do the same in their position). People want to fit you in a box because that’s how we identify each other. They’re not thinking about us anyway. They’re busy. You’re still the same person. Your priorities have just shifted.

Nina said on this week’s episode that she’s not posting when she’s crying on the bathroom floor to her Instagram. She also said it doesn’t mean she doesn’t wake up with doubts all the time, because she does. I do too.

I wanted this. I built it on purpose and I should say I’d do the same thing tomorrow but I’m just not sure about it, and I keep thinking that should have worn off by now.

So I still don’t know if I’m sitting still or moving. I asked that in a caption on Friday and asked it again on Sunday, so I’m clearly not getting anywhere with it. As one friend told me this week, as I sit here in Honolulu with my feet up staring at the ocean, I’m already living the life, just be present and enjoy it!

I wrote down the honest version of the first year after you leave something like that, and it’s free. Get the Field Guide.

New episode of Next Chapter, Anywhere out tomorrow if you’d rather hear the two of us bask in our sometimes profound and hilarious approach to reinvention.

—Cynthia