Over the weekend, a milestone: it’s been a year since I started this new life. The temptation is to tally up the “accomplishments,” to see if I’ve earned this freedom. 

But the “freedom” is already teaching me not to add up accomplishments, to see that as exactly the sort of mindset I was trying to escape. 

Instead, I’m remembering the farewell message I sent my colleagues in April of 2021. I told them that I was leaving to “write, study and travel.” And lo and behold, writing, studying and traveling is exactly what I’ve been doing. 

So the only tallying I’m doing today is … the counting of blessings.