On my way to the airport, I drove through a row of traffic lights. On nine of them, a stork was perched, glowing in the golden light of the setting sun while dark, stormy clouds lingered above the Alps in the background.
It was a scene to be taken in.
Storks symbolize new beginnings, rebirth, and family loyalty.
As I waited for the arriving plane, eager to finally kiss my husband, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of change was lingering on the horizon.
Because everything I had ever wanted…for me, for us…we were finally living it.
And that’s when something stirred in my body.
A familiar nudge I’d been trying to ignore.
The nudge that whispered:
“I know that you know what you’re wanting to change… but it will mean releasing everything that’s giving you comfort right now.”
I’d felt that nudge before. Years ago, watering irises in the backyard of our house in New York. I’d never seen so many dragonflies as I did that season. Dragonflies, symbols of change and resilience.
Even then, I knew what I wanted.
But I tried so hard to ignore it…because following that truth might have meant losing everything I had built. Everything I had known. I knew I needed to leave. To return to my homeland. But it felt like it might cost me my marriage, our family.
By the time my husband finally emerged from baggage claim, I had all but forgotten the storks and the dragonflies. All that mattered was that he was home.
But my knowing was confirmed shortly after, when an email arrived.
The one that took everyone by surprise. The one I had sensed coming for some time.
My intuition was right. Again.
That same guidance began leading me home…
To my roots.
My values.
My priorities.
The things that keep me up at night, and the things that fire me up.
What am I settling for?
What do I know is possible?
What am I holding on to because of fear?
What am I unable to receive because my hands are still full of the small stuff?
What am I doing because it’s familiar?
What am I doing because of its promise or potential?
And what am I doing because it’s my calling?
Where do they intersect?
Where don’t they?
Shifting identities.
Iterating businesses.
Writing it all down.
Dozens and dozens of pages.
Brainstorming. Envisioning. Strategizing. Tweaking…
I’ve been here before, too.
444 pages, to be exact.
That’s how many I wrote during my last metamorphosis.
What I had planned to be a bestselling memoir-meets-sociopolitical-commentary-meets-inspiration…
…became the most profound healing experience of my life.
It freed up eons of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity.
So I could call in our new beginning…for me, for us, as a family…on a new continent, with new careers.
What I didn’t realize then, but recognize now, is that all this “newness” was just a stepping stone.
A return.
A remembering.
A reminder that what I’d spent over a decade grinding to make work…
was just scaffolding.
Because the actual magic, the real power, the tangible changes, the quantifiable results?
They were already being created…through the work I kept dismissing as “just something to get me by.”
So when that dreadful email arrived, it brought something else, too:
…Clarity.
…Capacity.
…And just enough courage to finally claim (or be claimed by) what has always been undeniable.
I just hadn’t been available to receive it.
Sara
Strategic Advisor. Narrative Architect. Executive Mentor.
