Rediscovery as Reinvention

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Last October I packed up everything I owned and moved from St. Paul to Seattle, the farthest I had ever moved from my hometown of Minneapolis. For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to live near an ocean’s coast and Seattle had been my destination of choice for the last several years.

One week from now, I will be on the road, returning to the Twin Cities after just four months in Seattle. Obviously, this outcome is not what I had anticipated last fall when I first arrived in my new city, eager to call it home and become a Seattleite. At that time, I talked about how this move would be a new beginning, an opportunity to reinvent myself.

To support that reinvention, I planned to take some time off from work. An intentional period of rest and reflection. A sabbatical. I am thankful that I was able to do just that. I reconnected with parts of myself long forgotten and semi-buried, parts integral to who I am as a person, but that hadn’t been recognized or nourished for quite some time. Instead of reinventing myself from scratch, I found myself reinventing by rediscovery.

The irony is that I am now returning to my hometown a reinvented person, different than who I was when I left. I don’t know whether or not others will be able to sense the difference. And I don’t know if that is important. What is important is that I made this move; I took the risk; I spent time in self-reflection. Also important, just as when I first decided to move to Seattle, I am now taking the next right step for me, and that step is taking me home. A home ready for rediscovery.