Oh friends, it has been so long! I haven’t blogged in so many months because life has been crazy.

In the past year(ish), I have: graduated college, moved to Louisville, KY, started my career, moved apartments, traveled to six different states, and rescued a puppy… and that’s not nearly all of it.

BUTTTTTT I AM NOT DONE YET. I AM MOVING TO RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA ON THE 30TH (YES, OF THIS MONTH)!

I’m following my dreams, and I am so lucky to have an amazing job allowing me to work remotely. I just visited Raleigh for the first time ever recently and found an apartment and now I am just trying to figure the rest out. My new mantra for life and all it involves is “it’s figureoutable.”

Am I scared? Scared is an understatement. I am moving 8 hours away to a city I have hardly spent 24 hours in and have absolutely no friends or connections in. I am starting a completely new chapter way before expected. I honestly don’t know what Raleigh has to offer outside of Pinterest boards and Google searches, but I am so excited. I’m looking at it as it’s a giant adventure, and even if things don’t go as planned, it is all figureoutable.

Lately I’ve been trying to focus a lot on mindset and trust me when I say that saying I’ll miss my friends and Louisville is an understatement. I have grown roots here, and been at the absolute lowest and highest points of my life here. I have just finally started to know the roads without using GPS. And, my apartment just recently started to feel like home, after so many months of trying to make it feel that way.

I’ve been packing things up, taking photos off the wall, and praying that hopefully this move is going to be one that is a little less temporary.

I’m making it a goal to be a little more transparent and open on here- because I know life is busy and it’s crazy and chaotic and there are so many things- and we’re all trying to do all the things- so I hope that this is a way to nurture that connection with my people back home in West Virginia, along with my people in Louisville, Kentucky, along with the people that I haven’t met yet (but hope to).

While that’s one goal, I’ve also made a list of some others to try to really, really achieve/ practice while moving:

1. Embrace change. It is constant, it is happening around us, everyday, all the time. And with change comes opportunity. And adventure. And excitement.

2. Tell my story. I’ve always said I wanted to tell everyone’s story, including my own, but I have really sucked at doing that. I have always been careless with social media and blogging and not stuck with any of it, but I am making it a goal to post with intention. It may sound silly, but it’s important to me to leave some sort of legacy. I’ll talk about this more in another post.

3. Remind myself daily that it’s figureoutable. So far, I have a really great track record on overcoming the bad things that have happened to me and thrown me off track. I have always, always figured it out. We can figure everything out. And I have to remember that when change like this comes.

4. Start to say “no” more. I have always been a yes person. Always. I have such a hard time saying no to people because of my anxiety and my need for constant validation and my need for people to like me. But I want to learn how to recognize those bad thoughts and challenge them and stop them. I want to start living my life for myself and nobody else and making the days count because I am doing what I want to do.

5. Take more photos. I used to be so good at this, but lately I have been so bad at it. Probably because I’m always dragging around a 60lbs dalmation with me everywhere I go and I’m always trying to focus on making sure she doesn’t run out in front of the street to attack a squirrel, but nonetheless…

6. Really utilize a creative outlet and learn something new. I want to try something I’ve never done as a form of art. I want to try watercolor painting and even if that starts by paint-by-numbers off of Amazon, I want to continue to learn and continue to grow. It will probably suck and that is fine.

There are so many other things, but those are the ones I want to focus on at first. I hope you guys keep reading these blogs I post and follow this new chapter because I’m making it a priority to show up, as I am, and show you all the unfiltered, messy, but most importantly, real sides of me.

xx

Karima