About 8 years ago I was confiding in a friend about my strong desire to leave Tampa and move to DC.  While I wanted to work for a health policy think tank and move out of my mother’s house, I mostly wanted to change my life and fulfill a lifelong dream: to live in a city.

My image of city life was formed by TV, movies, and a few trips to New York.  I was in search of well-dressed and well-educated people, car-free living, activities marketed as “cultural” and restaurants that served a proper brunch.  My life was not in Tampa.  I belonged in a city.My friend was with me 100%.  “Write your own script,” she said.  Those words stuck with me.  They became the mantra I often repeated to myself when I approached a fork in the road – or needed to forge a new path.  I moved to DC shortly thereafter.

Today, years after I suspected my career was not for me, months after I realized my job was making me miserable, anxious, and depressed, weeks after finally leaving that job, and days after packing up and moving back to Tampa to begin my next chapter – I look to that mantra and I’m a bit freaked out.  DC became part of how I identified myself.  Even though my family is here along with chronic warm weather and white sand beaches, I’m not sure how I see myself here.

But I’m writing my own script.  I’m starting the next phase of my life.  I’ll have to make it work.