If I look back to where I am now compared to where I was one year ago, there have been so many positive changes. If I look back to where I am now compared to where I was two to three years ago, then there have been monumental changes.

Real progress tends to be slow because it is incremental, which is the way to sustainable change. Lasting change is also about the seemingly small ways we show up and put in the work: taking classes, running that 5K, getting up at 5 AM for that workout, planning the week, etc.

As writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy says: “All really great things are happening in slow and inconspicuous ways.”

Right now, I recognize change is happening, but it feels too slow. I want a big breakthrough and to escape some of my current circumstances. Since I tend to be high-strung, I crave a dramatic shift. And because God knows me well, He understands that I couldn’t handle a huge change all at once. God knows I would become overwhelmed and would sabotage the change or run away. I need to establish the right infrastructure and support systems in my life to handle major change.

The Return of the Starting Lineup

As we close out the first quarter of 2026, a major piece of that infrastructure is being rebuilt: the return of my starting lineup of friends. It is so amazing that I have reconnected with so many people who mean so much to me. I don’t think that’s an accident. I need my starting lineup around me to keep me grounded and to prevent me from getting overwhelmed.  I also need to be able to support those I care about and help build our village

No longer playing small and no longer settling for the short stick

The other piece of that infrastructure that is being built is escaping the constricted world I had limited myself to and expanding my horizons.  Before my life turned upside down in the summer of 2024, I complained that my world had become so small. I said I was bored, and that was true, but the problem was bigger than that.

I was playing too small and settling for the short stick in every area of my life. My world had shrunk to work and church, and I felt stagnant and stuck in mediocrity. I was like a zombie going through the motions of life. I joke with people that I have rejoined the land of the living.

I feel alive for the first time in a really long time. I had become numb because I had lost the ability to feel anything, because at church we were taught to spiritualize everything or pretend it wasn’t happening. Much of the emotional immaturity, delusion, resentment, bitterness, and outright mental illness we see at church is a result of people’s unwillingness to deal with the truth in their lives. Instead, they wear masks at church until the show can no longer go on or they get found out for who they really are. It’s an incredibly shallow and inauthentic environment. I feel pity for people who are not able to be their authentic selves because of religious pressures and judgments.

This first quarter of the year has been a season of discovery. I realize how much I strayed away from my true self and how much of my pre-COVID life I took for granted. A simple thing like being able to laugh at myself. It has been so much fun to be around people who don’t take themselves too seriously. At church, people are either too busy trying to keep their masks on to laugh at themselves or so insecure that they take everything as a personal slight.

One Quarter at a time

I’m also enjoying rediscovering activities I love and have missed, such as going to concerts, listening to good music, and reading about beauty and fashion. Come spring, I will be getting out and meeting new people. I couldn’t do all of these things at once, which is why I am going one quarter at a time.

The first quarter was about reconnecting with my favorite people and parts of myself I’d forgotten, and the next quarter is focused on getting back out and meeting great people. For the last few years, I haven’t had work peers, which has been really hard because I thrive when I’m part of a team. My goal for the third quarter is to join a great team so I can grow and build more connections. I also want to nurture my creative spirit and meet new people. There’s also the matter of finding a cause that I genuinely believe in to volunteer for.

An approach of gradual, steady progress in subtle ways suits me because attempting to overhaul my life all at once is a recipe for disaster.

This has been an amazing first quarter of the year, and it feels like I am just getting started.