How Travel Became My Path to Healing After Losing Everything

2024 was the year that changed everything for me.

In April, I lost my sweet boy, Dallas — my son, my heart, my constant companion. He didn’t leave my side. That kind of loss devastates you in ways that words can’t really explain. Heartbroken.

Then, just a few months later, in July, I lost everything else in a fire. It felt like my entire world collapsed — the life I was finally building in Nashville, the comfort I knew, all gone in an instant.

Looking back, I can see now that I had been running on fumes long before any of that happened. I was working four different jobs/projects, serving on a board, and volunteering on committees for multiple organizations. Let’s not forget that I also had a huge social life! I am lucky to have amazing friends! But I was constantly giving, constantly doing, constantly showing up for everyone and everything — except myself.

I barely remember 2024. It all feels like a blur — a mix of grief, exhaustion, and survival mode. My nervous system was completely shot. I’d wake up tired, go to bed drained, and somehow do it all again the next day. At the time, I told myself I was being productive, I was being social, but really, I was just surviving. I didn’t realize how disconnected I had become from myself — how much I was trying to hold everything together when everything inside me was falling apart.

After the fire, there was this moment of silence — the kind that hits you when everything familiar is gone. I didn’t have the energy to keep running anymore. My body, my mind, my heart — they were all begging for rest. For peace.

And that’s when I made the decision to leave.

Leaving Nashville wasn’t easy. It was my home, my comfort zone, the place where I had my family and support system. But I knew deep down that I couldn’t heal in the same environment that broke me. I needed space to breathe again. I needed stillness. I needed to find out who I was when I wasn’t constantly giving or doing.

I didn’t have it all figured out. I didn’t have a five-step plan or a detailed map. I just knew that something had to change — that if I didn’t choose myself now, I might never get the chance to. So I packed my things, took a deep breath, and decided to travel.

It wasn’t about escaping. It was about coming home to myself.

Travel became my medicine. It gave me the space to slow down, to sit with my emotions, to feel the grief and exhaustion instead of running from it. Mornings became slower. Silence didn’t feel so heavy anymore.

Somewhere between the chaos of traveling and figuring things out and the calm, slower days, I started to remember what peace felt like. I started to feel alive again — not in the way I used to, chasing the next project or to-do list, but in a deeper, quieter way.

My intention wasn’t to start a new travel lifestyle. I set out to find peace.

But somewhere along the way, I found myself again.

Now, I am a nomad. I am free.