A few weeks ago, we put our house on the market.
This decision was months in the making. We packed boxes, decluttered our maximalist home (no small feat), and had the tender conversation with my aging parents who live just two blocks away. Telling them we were planning to move, even just twenty miles down the road, was emotionally hard. Still, we moved forward. We shared the news online. We planted the For Sale sign in the yard.
Somewhere in the quiet weeks that followed, as we lived inside that decision, we began to sense another whisper — the kind that gently asks, Are you sure? Is this still true?
At first, we brushed it off. We had already said yes. We had already done the hard things (made the plans, packed the boxes, told the world). But the whisper kept showing up. In small conversations. In tiny hopes that we wouldn’t get a good offer. In the deep exhales after a long day of stalking Zillow.
It wasn’t doubt, exactly. It was deeper than that. A quiet, clear sense that something had shifted.
And so, we did something that surprised even us: We changed our minds.
We took down the sign. We told our friends. We exhaled. We stayed.
One of my friends said, “OMG, I love how you remind me that it’s okay to change your mind. I see freedom and permission to pivot.”
Her words stayed with me. Because yes, it was a big decision to walk back. But she reminded me of what I know to be true: shifting course isn’t a failure. It’s not indecisive or irresponsible. It’s a powerful act of self-trust. It’s honoring what’s true now.
What I’ve learned again (and again) is this: Sometimes the only way to know what we truly want is to live with a brave yes long enough to feel if it actually fits. That first yes — putting the house up for sale — wasn’t wrong. It was simply the next right step that led us to more clarity.
And clarity, even when it leads us back to where we started, is never wasted.
Years ago, my husband John made a significant career pivot from trauma nurse to Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). We moved states, invested time and money, and rearranged our lives for that new dream.
At first, it felt like the right choice. But a few years in, something shifted. The work, quite simply, didn’t suit him.
I watched his light dim. He was suffering, torn between honoring his well-being and clinging to a path he’d worked so hard for. Letting it go felt like failure. Like waste.
But it wasn’t. It never is.
Eventually, he did let it go — not because it was easy, but because staying was costing him his joy. He became a stay-at-home dad. Less prestige. Less pay. More peace.
Our recent almost-move reminded me of that again, of how brave it is to change course without needing to make the original choice wrong. Of how our children are watching. And how modeling the art of changing your mind teaches them to trust themselves, too.
We are not meant to suffer inside the decisions made by earlier versions of ourselves.
We are allowed to evolve. To un-choose. To return. To take the long way to clarity.
Nothing is wasted. Ever.
Not the boxes we packed.
Not the sign we took down.
Not the vision we’re no longer chasing.
I’m grateful for the reminder that clarity often comes after the decision, not before.
And that sometimes, the bravest yes is the one that says: Actually, we’re staying.
