The First Step Was Leaving

old shoes by the door—
no one told them where to go,
still, they wore the road

—

In late autumn, I found myself standing in my kitchen in Bern long after midnight, surrounded by the hum of a refrigerator that had seen better years and the faint echo of rain tapping gently on the windowpane like an old friend too polite to knock. I had boiled water for tea I wasn’t going to drink and stared at the same chipped mug I’d used for years, its handle barely holding on—like me, I suppose.

It wasn’t a crisis.
It wasn’t dramatic.
There was no grand falling out, no tragic catalyst, no external force pushing me out the door.

It was something quieter, deeper, and more personal.

It was the slow realization that the life I had built—though safe, though structured, though passable in the eyes of others—no longer fit the shape of who I was becoming.
And when that truth finally landed, not like a crash but like a feather falling steadily to the floor, I knew:
I had to leave.

—

Why the First Step Is the Hardest—But the Most Transformative

We like to believe that big change begins with fireworks.
With packed bags and goodbye letters and Instagram captions that say “onto new beginnings.”
But more often, growth begins with discomfort you can no longer explain away.

It begins with a sentence you whisper to yourself in the dark:
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Not with resentment, not with anger—
just with a quiet kind of honesty that no longer asks permission.

For me, that moment of clarity didn’t arrive on a mountaintop or during a life-coaching retreat.
It arrived in the pause between boiling water and pouring it.
In that stillness, I heard my truth.

That was my first step.
The one no one saw.
The one that changed everything.

—

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with One Honest Moment

There’s a famous saying: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
But what it doesn’t say—what it never says—is that the step doesn’t have to be physical.
It can be internal.
Invisible.
Unremarkable to anyone but you.

The journey I started wasn’t toward a specific destination.
It was toward alignment.
Toward living a life that didn’t require me to explain or defend my softness.
Toward choosing a rhythm that suited my breath, not someone else’s expectations.

And that first step—small as it was, silent as it felt—was the moment I chose not to abandon myself anymore.
And I believe that’s where all meaningful transformation begins.

—

What I’ve Learned Since Taking That Step

What followed wasn’t glamorous.
It was messy.
It was lonely, beautiful, uncertain, filled with long walks in unfamiliar cities and conversations that changed shape as I grew.
But it was mine.

And along the way, I learned a few things I return to often—especially when doubt tries to sneak back in:

• You don’t need a full map to move forward. The next right step is enough.
• Growth feels, at first, like loss. But it’s really just space being made for something more honest.
• Clarity is often the result of movement, not a prerequisite for it.
• You are allowed to outgrow a life that once fit. That’s not betrayal—it’s becoming.

—

Wabi-Sabi in the Decision to Begin

There is something deeply wabi-sabi in choosing to begin again—especially when nothing is forcing you to.
In seeing the cracks in your routine not as failures, but as invitations.
In recognizing the beauty of an imperfect life trying, still, to unfold into something real.

This quiet philosophy teaches us:

• The first step doesn’t have to be confident. It just has to be real.
• There is elegance in the incomplete, the uncertain, the becoming.
• You don’t need to fix yourself to start. You need to listen. Then move.
• Peace is not in staying where you are. It’s in honoring where you’re being pulled.

—

I never finished that tea.
But I did start something else—
something that felt like coming home to a version of myself I hadn’t met yet.

Now, when someone asks me what decision changed everything,
I don’t say “quitting my job” or “moving cities” or “starting over.”
I say: The night I stood in the kitchen and told myself the truth.
The night I left a life that no longer held me with care.
The night I took the first step—quiet, honest, mine.

And if you’re standing on that edge,
wondering whether it counts if no one sees it,
let me tell you:

It counts.
It always counts.

Because the journey begins there—
not when you arrive,
but when you decide
you’re no longer willing to stay behind.