I didn’t realize how much I needed this most recent trip back to California until I was sitting on a plane watching my departure time quietly move later and later.

There’s something humbling about flight delays. You can be organized, efficient, early and still end up rerouting at midnight and booking a hotel because your “simple” travel day has decided to become a character-building exercise instead.

By the time I finally landed in California in the early hours of the morning, I was not the polished traveler I like to think I am. I was tired, slightly amused, and reminded once again that control is often an illusion.

And maybe that was fitting.

Because this trip wasn’t about logistics. It wasn’t about efficiency. It wasn’t about trying to see everyone.

It was intentional.

Right before I left, one of my longtime friends came to visit me in Florida. Twenty-seven years of friendship sitting at my kitchen counter. Golf that was more therapy than sport. Beach walks, new restaurants, and movies at night like we used to when life felt simpler. The kind of friendship where you don’t have to explain your story because they watched you write it.

That visit filled me up more than I realized I needed.

But this California trip was different.

I purposely kept it focused on my family, primarily my kids. No overpacked calendar. No “while I’m here let me try to see everyone I’ve known since 1998.” No spreading myself thin.

This one was for my relationship with them.

Lately I’ve felt the distance more deeply. Not in a dramatic way, just in that quiet geographic way where you realize FaceTime is wonderful, but it isn’t the same as sitting across from each other at the table. I needed my cup replenished. I wanted to feel us again in real time.

The minute I walked in the door, everything softened. Her hug. Her laugh. The way she fills a room with warmth and intelligence. There is no role I will ever hold, professionally or otherwise, that outranks being her mom.

While my kids had to work, I was able to get some time with my brother and his fiancée, and my forever sister-in-law, one of my closest friends and someone who has walked beside me through almost every chapter of this complicated season. Divorce may have changed my marriage, but it never changed my place with this family.

Sitting with them was just easy conversation, catching up on kids, laughter that needs no explanation that reminded me how lucky I am that some relationships aren’t defined by legal lines or life transitions. They’ve seen me through so much of the world I’ve been navigating lately, often almost daily, and being with them in person felt grounding in a way I hadn’t realized I needed.

Some bonds don’t unravel when life shifts.  They simply hold steady

My time with my son ended up shorter than originally planned, and that tugged at me. Watching him grow into the man he’s becoming – steady, thoughtful, guiding young athletes through his coaching – is one of my greatest privileges. I always want more time than the clock allows.

And maybe that’s the lesson.

Time with the people we love is always borrowed.  It’s never owned.

Driving familiar roads felt different this time. California holds decades of my life: school pickups, baseball fields, kitchen conversations, long workdays that turned into longer nights.

But I am not that woman anymore. And yet, I am because of her.

I didn’t feel pulled to move back. I didn’t feel the need to rush forward. But I did feel the comfort in going back to Florida refueled with a bit of courage.

Not the loud kind. Not the Fire Horse gallop kind.  The quiet kind.

The kind that says you can love deeply without clinging. You can visit without regressing. You can miss someone without unraveling.

When I landed back in Florida, work started immediately. One of those weeks where corporate demands arrive in waves and you move from meeting to meeting solving problems and carrying responsibility.

Professionally, I know how to do that well now.

Personally, it means the emotions sometimes wait until the quiet hours.

And in those quieter moments, the heaviness surfaced again with missing my kids, missing family, navigating the release I knew I needed to make. There’s a particular loneliness that comes with doing hard emotional work far from the people who have known you the longest.

But life has a way of reminding you that new chapters bring new characters.

By the weekend, a few new friends invited me out to experience a Florida tradition I hadn’t yet checked off – Bike Week at the Cabbage Patch.

If you’ve never been, imagine motorcycles, live music, coleslaw wrestling and a whole lot of personality colliding in one wonderfully chaotic swirl. It was loud, colorful, slightly outrageous, and completely entertaining. And yes, I said coleslaw wrestling. 

Apparently my transition to Florida is now officially underway.

The next night was a completely different scene — a local boutique fashion show followed by dinner. Good conversation. New laughter. That early stage of friendship where you’re still learning each other but the energy feels easy.

And somewhere between motorcycles and runway models, something shifted.

Not dramatically.

Just a quiet reminder that while parts of my life are still releasing, other parts are beginning.

I’m still missing my people.

I’m still building what “home” will feel like here or even somewhere else soon.

But this weekend reminded me of something important.

Time is borrowed in every relationship we hold — with our children, our family, our friends, and sometimes even the people who pass through our lives for a season and leave a deeper imprint than we expected.

We don’t get to keep every chapter.

But we do get to carry what those relationships gave us.

The borrowed time with my kids and family filled my heart.

The memories with old friends remind me who I’ve been.

And these new connections here are slowly stitching together who I’m becoming.

Sometimes courage looks like big decisions and open gates.

And sometimes it simply looks like staying open to the people who show up next – trusting that every relationship, past and present, helped shape the road that’s still unfolding ahead.