When my husband and I moved from Asheville, North Carolina to Seattle, Washington, I realized this cross-country move was more than a change of scenery — it was another beautiful shift in identity. The East Coast raised me on resilience, grit, tradition, and survival. The West Coast is reminding me of how good it feels to inhabit reinvention, expansiveness, and living in full color. Together, they’ve reminded me that enoughness isn’t found in performance, but in inhabiting both roots and horizon.
In this essay, I reflect on what it means to carry both coasts inside me — the storms and history of the South, the visionary freedom of the Pacific Northwest — and how those landscapes mirror the identity shifts so many of us face. If you’ve ever felt torn between past and future, belonging and becoming, resilience and reinvention, this is for you.
