forward is a pace (2025)
In a lot of ways, life these days looks a lot like it did when the year first started: I’m still gearing up to start school, starting a new run plan, working part-time in the outdoor retail industry, building friendships, and single. It makes me wonder sometimes if I’m actually making any progress on my goals.
I have a sticker created by Bound for Nowhere that reads “Nowhere fast, everywhere eventually” and I think that’s a pretty apt motto for my life. Sometimes progress moves so slow it feels like you’re standing still. But progress is like a haircut. Day to day, it doesn’t look like hair grows. But when you look back a year later, the growth is evident. That’s how 2025 was for me.
This was my first full year in Boulder, marking the start of a new chapter in my life and a clean slate. At the beginning of the year, I was both overjoyed and overwhelmed by how many fun activities I could do and how many cool people I could befriend. I was eager to find “my people” and develop hobbies but it was hard to do so as the new kid (adult) in town. So I tried to do everything and meet everyone to give me the greatest chance of success. I cast my net far and wide, and it seemed to help. I was making friends, trying new things, putting myself out there in the dating scene, working a lot at Backcountry and Crystal Ski Shop, and having a lot of fun. My trail race photography side hustle was taking off better and faster than expected, and I traveled a lot every month for it. I was pleased and surprised by how quickly I seemed to assimilate in Boulder. Keyword: seemed.
By April, my “say yes to everything” approach started to fall apart. I was juggling too many things and too many emotions, and the constant travel started to wear on me. I tried to manage it the best I could but I was more tired and anxious, and often bailed last minute on plans with friends because I needed alone time. I didn’t like being that person but all I could do was ride out the storm, learn from it, and schedule things better going forward.
Everything came to a crashing halt when someone I looked up to called my actions and personality disingenuous. It was really hard to hear because although my time management had sucked lately, I wasn’t trying to be deceitful. I had tried to be as sincere as I could with others. But because I valued and trusted their opinion so much (too much), my opinion of myself wavered. If perception is reality, then they must be right, right? And if that’s how they felt, did others feel the same? I started to believe that I was incapable of making real connections (“the issue is me”), and that everything I was currently doing to progress friendships was only going to set me back further. It made me feel so alone and unsure of what to do. I withdrew into my shell and didn’t trust my gut, and if you can’t trust your own gut, who can you trust? It took a lot of time, tears, and processing for me to understand that what that person said was just one person’s opinion, and that their opinion of me shouldn’t weigh heavier than my opinion of myself, especially when they were judging me based on brief interactions (mostly digital) and word of mouth.
Although I ultimately learned to shake off the brunt of their perceptions, it did make me take a good hard look at the last few months. And while I know I was being genuine in everything I did, I do feel that I was acting without a personal compass to guide me. I didn’t say no to things because I didn’t know what to say no to, and I worried that saying no meant severing a potential friendship, hobby, etc. prematurely. I realize now that I was a little too eager to find my place. I wanted to fit in so badly that I became too amenable and I lost sight of myself. Just because I can do everything and befriend everyone, doesn’t mean I should. And that’s okay. I am allowed to have an opinion. And others are allowed to have an opinion about me. But I needed to trust that “my people” will embrace me for me. After all, “those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
So in the second half of the year, I became more comfortable in my own skin. I gave myself permission to not ski every weekend, to focus on running over climbing, to embrace my homebody nature, to be proud of going through a career change in my 30s, and to give myself grace when I made a mistake. I gave myself permission to be myself.
Leaning into this mindset has allowed me to be more intentional with how I spend my time and who I spend it with, in order to build deeper, organic connections and experiences. But as with hair, I know that growth takes time. Finding my way in a new city is going to take time. I can’t force it. All I can do is trust the process and try to celebrate the little steps I’m taking toward my goals. At times it’s frustrating to feel so far from my goals, and there’s often set backs like having to withdraw from a class last fall or spraining my ankle before a big race. But I know that progress is often slow, and that’s okay, because there’s so much purpose in the everyday grind, and it’s the process that makes the end result actually mean something.
I listened to a friend’s podcast last year (The Evolving Adventurer) who said “forward is a pace” and it really spoke to me. I’m on my own path, at my own pace. So heading into 2026, I hope to approach my life with alignment, intention, and intuition. I want to focus on quality over quantity, find awe in the everyday, and keep moving forward regardless of how big or small that movement may be.
I know I’ll get to everywhere… eventually.