Why I've been quiet this year

Some news on living my longings

Jul 16, 2026

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up in France where I’ll stay in a small studio in a small city, before moving to another small studio in Paris, before crossing the English Channel with my partner and two cats and everything we managed to stuff in suitcases, before finding a place that we will hopefully come to call home.

This is all coming to fruition on such an extreme timeline, you’d think it came out of the blue. But there’s some backstory.

We have been working steadily toward expatriating for NINE years. You might be wondering why, or you might have your own ideas about all the reasons why, and while I can’t unpack the layers of this longing here (or in any public writing, really), I can share the core of it. It comes down to feeling at home in oneself in the world. Living in different cultures has shown me time and again that the things that felt like impossible ideals, and even the parts of myself that I struggled with most, were actually just a misfit for the context that I knew.

Just the other day, in the middle of packing and sorting paperwork, I found an sheet of paper (old-school Crayola construction paper) with a tree diagram of pathways to make this dream possible. It was written in the summer of 2020 right before moving back to Germany for the second time.

What was clear in this diagram was that we were willing to take almost any path for almost any length of time in order to live out this longing. We made a pact that whatever sacrifices we needed to make, whatever leaps of faith, and no matter how unbearable the uncertainty became, this was something we’d realize.

Sometime last year, when I felt disconnected from my resolutions, I made an altar. My altar creating came with an agenda: I wanted my longings to finally be real.

So I gathered four wonky chalice-like ceramic cups, bought in a bundle at a yard sale from a woman who nonchalantly shared that a friend made them for her, and I worked up the courage to write a wish to place in each cup. I’m calling them wishes, but writing them down and placing them in each cup, one by one, was a gesture of consecration.

Why work up the courage to do this? I was afraid that it would be another example of written down aspirations that didn’t pan out… on an altar that grew dusty and forgotten. Promising myself that it would be different this time, I winced at the familiarity of this moment. Maybe my wishes wouldn’t come true, maybe I’d set the altar and forget about it until three weeks later when I notice it again as nothing more than an artifact of good intentions, and I wonder if I should just deconstruct it and forget I even tried.

One of the rules I live by is that when it comes to whatever you’re called to in life, it’s ok to keep trying until it sticks. I’m stubborn with this rule, mostly because I have to be. The paradox is this: things that come most naturally to me, the longings that feel most true, don’t usually come easily. Sometimes our truest gifts are hardest won.

So I gathered my courage, picked up my pen with determination, scooted close in to the altar like I was about to share a secret, and I did. I wrote my four wishes. They were prayers.

Each note I wrote was asking for a miracle. One for my personal life, for my family. One for a loved one. One a longtime aspiration in my business. One on behalf of the greater collective, an urgent prayer. Each extremely longstanding and tender. I tried not to clench while writing them, following each letter slowly.

Fast forward over the last months: I sat at this altar more times than I ever had. Even in passing moments, I paused and directed my attention toward my original intention. I told myself this was like a plant, best not to fidget with it all the time, but to check on it and make sure it has what it needs (to be dusted and remembered).

The thing is, it did get a little dusty and a little forgotten. But I also stayed stubborn to my rule and my desires, catching any thoughts of ‘should’ or high expectations around getting it right.

Two of my prayers were realized. Two prayers I yearned for and felt like gifts of a lifetime are now just life. One I’ll keep private, the other is the prayer for this long awaited move.

I’m not telling myself that this happened because it was written and placed at the altar. Do I think the realization of this dream was supported in part by placing an intention in a sacred spot and imperfectly returning to it with stubborn devotion? For reasons beyond reason, yes. It’s a way to practice the understanding that even when it feels like it, there is no one-shot chance at our longings.

That said, there’s A LOT more that went into to how this all came to be. A lot of it looked like being willing to fail extravagantly without promise of it ever working out.

We’re in France for six weeks before moving to the UK. In order to have pets on the plane cabin, we have to travel to the EU and then cross by ferry. I’m writing this while in the terminal, looking at them right now, snuggled in their carriers.

And the six weeks part? Instead of extending our lease in the US while waiting for entry to the UK, we decided to move early and apply our rent to cover this extended stay. With a history of fast and intense moves, doing this was a way that we can savor what it means to live into a long-time longing and start a new life chapter.

Somehow, we managed to save money while taking what turns out to be the longest vacation we’ve ever had. Truth be told, it’s not a total vacation because there is major work to be done and logistics to organize, but starting the day with a croissant and ending it with apéro is vacation to me!

This is what the last number of weeks have looked like

Clearing out my closet and saying goodbye to clothes I’ve owned for over fifteen years. All of the books I meant to read and didn’t. Gently wrapping all of the objects I’ve collected over time: a Moroccan pepper grinder. Arak glasses made from the glass from the port explosion gifted by family in Beirut. My East German alarm clock I thrifted right before moving to the former DDR. Scarves dotted with cowboys from my late aunt and a hand-carved spinning top from my late uncle. Gifts exchanged with friends all the way back from when I was a little girl. Extremely old printings of the I Ching, Jane Eyre, and Alice in Wonderland... the list goes on.

It also looked like parting with things that I loved and wanted to keep. It helped when I thought about the cosmic thrift cycle as I donated things I found in college back to the thrift stores they came from: imagining some 19-year-old pulling my copy of The Way of Zen off a shelf or finding my funky skirt from the early 2000s to wear to a party.

None of this, the sorting and donating, held a candle to what it was like to say bye-for-now to friends and family. This part is too much for me to write about here. This part just sucks.

Saying goodbye to my office was also hard

If you’re reading this and we know each other ‘irl’ + locally, saying goodbye and doing logistics on such a short timeline left me with regrets about not telling everyone in time, not having the capacity to balance packing and organizing goodbyes. In this last chapter in the US, I felt half here and half somewhere else, navigating private challenges while being transparent with the plans to move as soon as soon as we could.

I cherished the conversations and at the same time felt how necessary it was to keep my circle small, since so much focus oscillated between getting through rough patches and making this moment happen. I’m sharing all of this only because if you wanted to spend more time together and it didn’t pan out, chances are high that I feel the same.

Looking forward at the next couple months, so little is certain. A close friend asked if I was nervous about making new friends. What first came up for me was the vulnerability and discernment in making friends as an adult. If I’m honest, I also have to curb cynicism based on what I’ve seen in the last few years.

What’s more true than that is the beauty of knowing that there are friends who are there and we just haven’t met yet. I’m grateful that at this point in my life, I don’t feel the need to contort who I am or try to make something work that doesn’t feel resonant.

I’m beyond excited to find our new home and start to settle in.

In all of this, I trust the necessary risks it takes to create a life that feels true to my values and spirit. This is my M.O. so much that I’ve slowly but surely made a career around supporting people to stop waiting for permission they were never going to get from anyone but themselves so that they can finally do the things that their heart can’t shake.

Whoever is reading this: I don’t know your personal circumstances or all the things that influence what is possible or what feels open to even dream about as a possibility, but I REALLY believe in your creative dreams and the possibility of realizing them.

My heart is beating so fast right now... wish me luck!!

IN GUMPTION,
Maggy