Dear Friend,
I hope your spring is off to a good start.
We just returned from Costa Rica for break. I’m usually down there hosting retreats, so to get to go for mere enjoyment felt like a gift. It felt important.
I first walked that beach eleven years ago, alone, sipping coconuts by day and napping through the heat of the afternoon. My three young kids were with my parents. Five days felt like an eternity to leave them, but I needed to remember who I was.
I came home a new woman. That trip changed the core of me.
That same beach has been the backdrop for some of the most important decisions of my life.
Four years ago, my husband and I walked it each morning while our kids slept in the rental, debating whether to leave Boulder for Montana. How would the kids react? What about his job? Could we really go through with it? A year later we returned, then living in Montana, walking the same stretch of sand at sunrise, spinning in circles about whether to cut bait from Boulder entirely.
It had been three years since we’d been back this time. We did the same early morning walks, the same beach, holding space for our deepest dreams, hopes, shifts, and conversations.
Something about being in a new environment opens windows that normally remain only cracked. What needs to stop. What must shift. What dreams I am ignoring that I’ll regret if I don’t pay attention now.
This time, my changes are quieter, more internal. No moving to different states, as this stage of life requires more rootedness for our kids. Instead, more a shifting of focus, of time, of energy. The beckonings are quieter, but feel just as essential.
On the last morning, my daughter joined us at 6am to catch the sunrise. We found a baby turtle alone on the sand, struggling toward the ocean. We watched him for a long while. The waves kept returning him to shore.
He appeared fragile and delicate, and even our attempts to help couldn’t change his fate. It immediately made me think about my parenting, as all things do these days. As we watched him struggle and tried to help him, I understood that the baby turtle had to do it on his own. No amount of my help could rescue him.
It is such a funny thing, this stage of life as a parent, watching my kids’ wins and challenges, wanting to help, but knowing my help is the last thing they want or need.
The turtle also reminded me of the preciousness of my own temporal existence—how fragile, how fortunate. And to offer patience to myself, protection, and wisdom.
Another woman came to watch the baby turtle’s journey, and we left to catch our flight. I hope he made it to the ocean. I won’t know. But I trust he is on whatever path is meant for him.
To learn more about my other writing and offerings, please see my website. xxo
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