Redundant

For the past two months my life has felt like it’s been on pause. Everything kind of fell out of my control and all I could really do was sit still, wait, and focus on healing. In that stillness boredom came in waves.

To fill the time I started reflecting on my year abroad. I began editing together the little clips I filmed in different countries not because I wanted to be a vlogger but just because I had them and I thought it might help me process everything.

While I was traveling I didn’t film much. My focus was always on staying present and actually living what was happening. Still, during those seven months I carried this strange sense of disassociation with me. Like I was in a constant “pinch me” state where everything felt surreal.

It wasn’t until I came home that I could actually sit with it and begin to reflect on what I had just lived through.

At first editing the videos was fun.

But after a while it started to feel redundant. Almost a year has passed since that journey started and I caught myself wondering: am I making these now because I’m holding on too tightly? Does it come across like I’ve already peaked?

That thought scared me because I never want to suggest those days were the best of my life. They were incredible, but they weren’t the peak. I believe the best is still ahead of me. Right now I feel stuck yes but more in a state of potential energy just waiting to turn kinetic again.

One of the hardest things after coming back from the fast pace of traveling was slowing down. Not rushing into “what’s next,” not trying to force the next big moment, but just letting myself embrace the slower rhythm. Learning to be okay with the plateau. Because plateaus aren’t nothing—they’re often what comes right before a breakthrough.

I think our culture puts a subtle kind of pressure on us to always be chasing, always moving, always breaking through. But if you’re always chasing, you’ll never feel fulfilled. Life isn’t always about going full speed. Sometimes it’s about stillness. And I’ve learned to be okay in that stillness. In fact I’ve found a kind of fulfillment in it.

Janelle Roberts once said, “Sometimes failure is just you sitting in between a miracle.” That line reframed everything for me. The stillness I was experiencing made me feel like I was failing, like I had lost momentum or fallen behind.

But now that things are picking back up, I see that wasn’t the case at all. That space wasn’t failure. It was the pause between two miracles, the reset before the next wave. Now that I’ve had time to reflect on the past year I feel like I can finally close that chapter.

Redundancy isn’t necessarily bad, it can be a sign of growth, of something new about to come. It’s just about recognizing it and not getting stuck inside it.