It Could All Burn Down in a Heartbeat. So What Will You Do With Your One and Only Life?
Jul 19, 2026
If you experience deep change in life and grief doesn’t catch in your throat or well up in your eyes… are you even living?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself lately, more than once.
There are moments in life that seem ordinary when they happen.
Then, suddenly, they reveal something much deeper.
I’m writing this from my desk overlooking the Boise foothills. The morning light is falling across the trees, the water, and the stunning sky.
The mountains feel familiar now, like old friends.
It’s peaceful here.
Boise has felt like a grounding cocoon for my inner work.
As you may know, I’ve been preparing to leave.
For some time, I’ve been living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, and now I’m stepping into that more fully.
I want to spend more time in Europe and India, host retreats, build a women’s group, and give this next chapter the space to develop.
I am clear about that.
And…
As I was flying back from Denver and descending into Boise, something came up for me that was so interesting and completely unexpected.
Looking out over the mountains as we prepared to land, I felt an untapped well of grief.
Tears filled my eyes behind my sunglasses.
I love Boise so much.
It’s beautiful and expansive, especially from the air, looking out across the mountains.
It’s a beautiful place to live.
I love the little airport that has been my gateway to the world… and has made travel feel so easeful.
I love walking through my front door after being away.
The quiet.
My meditation space.
The beautiful sanctuary I’ve created here.
It is grounding and nourishing.
Everything in its place.
For a moment, I wondered…
Could I be making a mistake?
I get emotional even now, just writing this.
But I knew that if I allowed myself to feel it, really feel everything, pay attention to what life was showing me, and remain curious, open, and present…
I didn’t need to force an answer.
I could simply be with it.
I’ve learned that when I stop rushing past uncomfortable feelings, life often reveals something I couldn’t have seen otherwise.
There is always something there for me.
And that is exactly what happened.
•••
You may remember that last month I wrote about the storms that raged outside my window and destroyed the eagles’ nest across the lake.
Well, last weekend, a wildfire broke out in the hills just beyond my apartment.
At around 1:30 in the afternoon, I noticed a small plume of smoke.
It quickly grew until much of the hillside was engulfed in flames.
Helicopters circled overhead, and planes flew back and forth throughout the afternoon and evening.
Within hours, the fire had spread across an enormous area.
It has now burned through more than 7,000 acres.
As I watched it unfold, I remembered something that had flashed through my mind when I was on the plane just a few days earlier.
This whole landscape could burn.
At first, I wondered whether that awareness meant I shouldn’t be so attached.
But that wasn’t what it was showing me.
It was reminding me that even if I stayed, nothing here was ever going to remain exactly as it is.
Not these mountains.
Not this apartment.
Not this season of my life.
And not me.
I think that’s often what grief is.
It’s love meeting impermanence.
So much of our grief comes from wanting the people we love, the places that nourish us, the identities we have built, or the chapters we are living to somehow remain the same.
We can mistake those things for the source of our happiness, fulfillment, or wholeness.
But life doesn’t make that promise.
And, deep down, we don’t really want everything to stay the same.
That is often just the illusion of safety.
•••
Yesterday, I met a friend for tea.
Well, a virtual one, at least.
She lives in the UK, and her only son is finishing university and graduating this week.
He has lived in one place for four years, and now he is about to spread his wings and step into the world as a bright, accomplished young man.
As she sipped her coffee, she said:
“It’s an odd time, Naomi. He’s between lives. He has one foot in one world and one in another.
“On one hand, he says he’s done. On the other, I know he would love to stay. He’s smart and ready for what comes next, but he’s still my beautiful little boy.
“And I can’t just step in and fix it. This is much bigger than a lost pencil case. He will figure it out. But I know he’s suppressing his emotions rather than being honest with himself or really allowing himself to feel it.”
•••
It struck me because these are threshold moments.
Perhaps you have felt them too.
Maybe you are growing beyond a relationship, a career, a place, or a version of yourself.
Maybe nothing on the outside has changed, but something inside you knows that you are no longer who you were.
These in-between spaces can feel deeply uncomfortable.
We often want clarity as quickly as possible.
We want certainty.
We want to know that we are making the right decision.
But that isn’t really how life works.
Life asks us to stay present and feel what is here rather than rushing to fix it.
To let grief exist alongside excitement.
To let love exist alongside change.
To stop asking life to remain the same.
The fire didn’t tell me to leave Boise.
It reminded me that everything changes, whether I leave or stay.
I love this place.
And my experience has been that almost every place I have left, I have loved.
There is simultaneously a knowing that it is time to go and a grief for everything a place has given me.
It is sad to move.
It is sad to let something go.
But when I allow myself to feel that sadness fully, it moves through me.
And then I move on.
Literally and emotionally.
For me, this makes life richer.
You stop relating to places and people as things you need to keep forever.
Instead, you experience them fully for what they are.
You allow them to nourish you, hold you, and become part of what carries you into your next chapter.
You savor them.
You appreciate them.
You give thanks for them.
Our homes.
Our children.
Our relationships.
Our work.
The versions of ourselves we have already lived through.
The question isn’t how to hold on tighter.
It is to participate more fully in every part of our lives.
To notice.
To appreciate.
To grieve.
To celebrate.
To love.
Because this is the only moment.
It won’t last forever.
And that is what makes it so precious.
Life is wild like that.
It is happening outside your office and away from your computer screen.
It is happening while you scroll, and beyond all the small, trivial things that keep you distracted.
Some changes you will plan for.
Others you won’t.
But either way, I want to invite you to sit with discomfort.
When something feels uncomfortable, can you look at it rather than move away from it?
What is here for me?
What is this oppurtunity inviting me into?
Not become so entangled in it that you stop moving forward. Just look.
Because the discomfort isn’t necessarily telling you to leave or stop.
It may simply be showing you that life is changing. That there is something to learn, whether you hold on or not.
There can be so much grief in leaving something behind that has held you so well, even when you know leaving is right.
Every one of these moments over the last few weeks, the eagles losing their nest, the rush of emotion as I flew over Boise, the forest fire, my friend’s son stepping into his next life, has confirmed that I am moving in the right direction.
But I have to allow myself to feel it.
Even today, when I told the leasing office that I am leaving, I felt sorrow.
It is hard to leave.
And I also know, deep down, that I won’t truly miss this apartment in the way I think I might.
I have been to and will be in so many beautiful places.
It’s not that I need to stay in Boise.
It’s not that my friend’s son needs to stay at university.
It’s not that life needs to stay the same.
Or that it could, even if we wanted it to.
So the question is not:
How do I keep everything the same?
Perhaps it is…
How fully am I willing to live while it is here?
Where do I want to go?
What do I want to create?
What will I do with my one and only life?
Love and blessings, ๐๐ป๐๐ชท
P.S. This apartment and this chapter of my life have been an extraordinary space for me.
Boise wasn’t my destination.
It was my incubator.
It gave me the space to become the woman I am today.
And now it is time to take who I have become into the world.
I’m not the same person I was when I moved here five years ago.
And something tells me neither are you.
If this newsletter resonated with you, I’d love to invite you to take my EVOLVE Assessment.
In just five minutes, you’ll gain greater insight into the source of your grief or discomfort and the possibility waiting within this next chapter.
You’ll also receive first access to my new offers and more accessible ways to work with me.
Take the EVOLVE Assessment here.
P.P.S. Real change doesn’t happen from reading these words and nodding along, though that can be a start.
It happens when this work becomes part of how you actually live, so you are no longer unconsciously repeating the same old patterns.
Learning to be present with both the discomfort and the joy. Because both are part of what it means to be fully alive.
