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When I started my blog about change 199 issues ago, the world was shutting down from COVID. My daughter’s high school band trip to Ireland, for which my husband and I were going to chaperone, got cancelled two days before we were to fly to Dublin in mid-March, 2020. Freedom was taken away from everyone.

I grew increasingly untethered from everything that had once kept me grounded, including weekly visits to the public library, volunteering with the Mountaineers, and helping care for the giraffes at Woodland Park Zoo. Public hiking trails shutting down for several weeks was the last straw.

I wanted something positive to grow out of the uncertainty, but I wasn’t sure what that might look like. When trails re-opened, I raced to the summit of Mt. Washington early on May 5, 2020, determined to seize my freedom and get back to my happy place.

In July of 2020, I published the first issue of my blog. I had no idea what would grow. I just knew I couldn’t freeze in fear like the rest of the world.

Five Years of Showing Up

In the past five years, I’ve done more learning than during any other time in my life except college and graduate school. From neurology to languages on Duolingo, Zoom presented numerous opportunities to expand my horizons. I also teamed up with an accountability partner and joined Tama Kieves’ spiritual coaching community to see if I could rewrite some of the old stories from my past.

Near the end of 2023, I decided it was time to expand my hiking community from outings with just one friend at a time. I mentored a new hiker for several months, and then joined the Seattle Mountaineers hike leader list in November 2024.

Parallelling that time, I went from no public speaking to a dozen or more in the current year. I continue to expand in all directions, from leading to teaching, coaching to exploring. I’m facing the busiest single month within the Mountaineers over my 33-year history, leading, co-leading, or mentoring sometimes three events weekly. I face freedom I never knew before.

I thought I was building new skills, but now I realize I was building capacity for expansion, for tolerating butterflies before talks, for holding space in emotional client sessions, and for letting snow change the pace. I was building capacity for living my life fully.

And what I learned is that repetition does something quieter than achievement: it reshapes your response to leadership, challenges, and experience.

My Recent Evolution

As recently as January 2026, I was still facing anxiety before each of my talks. For a month, I lamented “I have all these talks coming up, why don’t I get moving?” At the same time, I added several months’ worth of Tuesday hikes, as though I was afraid that someone else would grab the trails or dates I wanted. My evil twin, comparison, sneaked up to tell me “this person is doing X” or “that person is doing Y.”

But something has shifted. Now when I think about the upcoming month of leads, I have a system ironed out that works for me. I know how to manage the butterflies before I say my first sentence on Zoom or in the classroom. I can hold space for clients sharing difficult truths. And what’s more, I am starting to recognize old stories that no longer serve me. It’s taken two long years of working on my spiritual growth, but I’ve reached a point of equilibrium where I can look at my track record and say, “No matter what happens, I’ll be okay.” That is evolution.

What I’m recognizing is that the old me equated constant movement, doing, challenging, with self-worth. I didn’t think I was proving anything. Yet I was still racing something. Chasing something.

Mt. Washington – The Shift

On Thursday, eight of us were enjoying a snowy hike to the summit of Mt. Washington, a hike I try to do every year. Our goal was to do it as a conditioner, average moving speed of 2.5 mph. We hit snow 1.4 miles up, and I mentally chucked the pace out the window. Snow always slows people down.

In the final half mile, three of my group continued up the last long switchback while I paused, waiting to hear the other four behind me. I stopped my watch and took out a few dates. In that moment, I realized I wouldn’t be first. And it didn’t faze me.

“Oh well. Safety first,” I remember thinking.

I recall that aborted Cinco de Mayo trip in 2020 and how I’d felt I had to prove to the world that I would NOT have my trails, my lifeline, my freedom taken from me. Six years ago, I would have pressed on. Even two months ago, I might have told myself a quiet story about not being enough if I wasn’t first to the top.

This time, there was no story. No need to prove anything to anyone. No need to prove anything to myself.

What Changed

Now, I can take a nap if I feel I need to catch up on sleep. I can wait to schedule hikes until my calendar opens up, or judiciously add a few CHS hikes as anchors. I trust that I’ll get enough material together for each of my talks.

On hikes, I can choose the co-leader or mentored leader role instead of the main leader. On Mt. Washington, I experimented with delivery by saying it would be a pacing hike or conditioner. When the snow changed our plans, I pivoted. And when I saw my group splitting into two different paces, I dropped back and placed myself in the middle to keep us safe and together, despite the distance between groups.

I can’t control world politics, technology, and fracturing values systems. But with the grounding of the mountains, I am no longer rattled by it.

If Blog 1 was about surviving uncertainty, Blog 200 is about not being rattled by it. Perhaps my biggest change isn’t what I’ve built in six years and 200 blog posts. It’s what no longer hooks me. It’s recognizing the freedom of choice.

The Freedom of “Oh Well”

Six years ago, I raced to the summit. Not getting there first would have meant something about me. Now, it doesn’t. My role has changed from competitive athlete to compassionate coordinator. Or perhaps the wood duck I’ve been imagining — flexible, unbothered, itself — is finally taking root.

We don’t always notice when growth happens. Sometimes it shows up as a small, steady “Oh well” where there used to be a surge of proving. Leadership now feels steady and familiar, something that grows with practice. That’s the kind of freedom I didn’t know I was growing when I started this blog six years ago.

I don’t know where blogs 201-300 will take me, but I know I will keep learning, expanding, growing, and evolving. And that’s change I embrace wholeheartedly.