New Things To Love

How a move unleashed a zest for new experiences

September 2023

On our 8th wedding anniversary date, over nut crusted Brie and views of the San Diego Bay and skyline, my husband said to me, “I want to pursue the move to Idaho.”

Tears mixed with my mascara and I felt like I was sinking sinking sinking. We’d talked about this possibility before, but he’d never voiced his desire so boldly. The questions had been nagging, the what if’s swirling for years, decades even for him, but we were finally seriously considering a major life change.

The life I imagined for us in San Diego with family and beach days and Spanish Immersion school dropped like a rock to the bottom of a clear lake. I could see our future glinting back at me, now obscured and unreachable.

***

April 2024

Finals week at the university where I worked was quickly approaching and my anxiety grew along with each day’s light. My husband and I had decided to move our family from San Diego, CA to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. We had told our parents, our kids, and most of our friends. Nothing had changed—yet.

A text from our realtor informed me that the interior painting of our house needed to be pushed up two days sooner than planned. The painter had an upcoming surgery. The request was fair enough, yet my stomach dropped and my jaw locked. I was counting on those two last days of normalcy. Two more days until our house would never be ours again. Two more days until all evidence of our life here—painted accent walls and family picture galleries, the dents and scuffs and doodles of my children’s baby and toddlerhood—would be erased.

It’s too hard, I whispered. We should just stay.

***

I decided to treat the move decision like OCD. I planned out exposure work¹ specific to the move. I wrote out worst case scenarios and accepted that maybe this was the worst decision and maybe I would regret it. I spent time each day with my tried-and-true tools of OCD recovery. Allow, accept, acknowledge the fears. Keep coming back to my values.

Despite the grief and the guilt and the utter inconvenience of it all, what did I want with the move?

I wanted to trust in an expansive goodness. That there was good for us outside of San Diego. I wanted to trust in adventure. Trust in our choices. Value my husband’s desire to branch out and try something new. I wanted to trust that we could handle however it turned out. Trust that discontent could be holy.

I committed to stopping the cycle of rumination. (more details in this post here: Snooze on Solving)

I made an alarm/calendar entry to "figure it out later.”

I still had fears about the move, but I felt ready to proceed with our decision and the heartbreaking and exhausting work of moving my family.

***

We did not feel called to move, in the sense that God gave us a clear conviction to go. Annoyingly, God was very silent on the topic. Both staying and going felt like good choices, bad choices, and excruciating choices. Only after I found peace with the decision and moved forward in self-trust, did God give us “signs” that we were on the right track.

I am not one to open my Bible and point to a random verse for inspiration. I can count the number of Bible verses that have felt personal to me in the last few years on one hand, on one finger, actually.

When I first started sharing more about my OCD diagnosis, I was working as a burned out ESL writing professor. I desperately wanted a new passion and vocation.

One morning in church, in a flash of inspiration, I had the idea to combine my love of teaching, writing, and working with people one-on-one into a new outlet: OCD advocacy, education, and coaching. (This is the idea that led to this Substack.)

The verse that sparked this idea:

​“See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19

Sunday morning the same weekend we took all of our photos and proof of life off our walls, the pastor preached on a verse. You guessed it: Isaiah 43:19.

First, I was mad and a little resentful for God or the universe to give such a clear sign after so much agony. Second, I was encouraged.

The “new thing” of OCD coaching and advocacy had been so life-giving. This verse reminded me that new is not necessarily bad. New can be very very good. It also helped me see that I could trust myself. Even in the silence, I had made a choice for good.

***

July 9, 2024

We arrived in our new home of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, sad and tired, but also expectant and hoping for good things.

***

July 9, 2025

A year ago, I could not have envisioned the scope of new things I would experience and enjoy. I thought I would be moving into a career in mental health and finishing my memoir about growing up with undiagnosed OCD. It turns out those were the old new things.

The new new things are plenty.

Below is a list of new things from the last year that I am currently loving and give myself full permission to change my mind about later. (Feel free to skim, I just wanted to record all of these new things in one place.)

Hobbies (brand new or rekindled)

Whether from OCD or just a general fear of failure, I learned that I previously avoided hobbies or activities that I am not instantly excellent at. How silly. I don’t do that anymore and I am loving a variety of new things:

• Zumba

• Rock climbing

• Snow walks

• Lake swimming

• Hiking

• Cold plunges

• Biking in real life (my friends and I had a laugh at this phrase, but I just mean regular old biking outside, not on a Peloton or at a speed that rivals cars)

• Solitude/silence

• Poetry

• Watercolor

• Walking almost everywhere instead of driving

Physical health

• Last August I had sinus surgery and spent most of the fall recovering. Recovery was a b*tch, but I haven’t had a sinus infection since, so I begrudgingly admit it was worth it

• Started seeing a functional medicine doctor and have overall improved my mood, energy, and immune system

• Started cold plunging, which has been huge for my insomnia and generalized anxiety (I would not recommend as an OCD treatment, but I do find it helps calm the general hum of physical anxiety symptoms.)

Creative year in review

• Launched Glitch Fix

• Found and attended an in-person writing group with a lake view that I can walk to from my house. I’ve walked to the meeting in the sun, past the fall colors, in the rain, and in the snow. I’ve made new writer friends and share my own work most meetings. It is so life-giving to me to read/share my words to a live audience.

• Worked on my OCD memoir (and gave myself permission to pause it for now so I can live into the healing.)

• Re-launched my Grace-Filled Growth newsletter

• Plunge / Paint / Poem Challenge with three new things—cold plunging, watercolor, and daily poetry writing and sharing

• I participated in two creative cohorts with the amazing Laura and Laura

• Took a photography class with Ashlee Gadd (I would have been way too intimidated before this year—another thing I wouldn’t try because I don’t feel good at it)

• Discovered I’m actually a visual artist and love documenting my life and places I love through painting

New ways I put myself out there

• The hardest one—harder than all the publications listed below—was figuring out how to sign my son up for Little League that required forms from doctors, the school, and two proofs of residency. It felt like more vetting than a cabinet-level position. And then the try outs. Oh, I was so nervous and proud watching my son try to catch a grounder in front of a roomful of strangers before he even knew what a grounder was.

• Publications

  • I shared an essay on motherhood for Listen To Your Mother Spokane on Mother’s Day to a theater of over 300 people

  • Essay in the Coffee and Crumbs Summer Collection: Children at Play

  • Guest post: Craving // Connecting: Exposure for Kelsey Aldringer

  • I had two poems published in Kris Ann’s A Year of Poetry Study and Reflections along with many other Substack poets. (Held, on page 15 and Monday Morning poem and painting on pages 69-70)

  • My essay, Living in Wonder, was accepted to the literary journal, Calla Press. You can order a copy here.

  • The God of Surprise for the 1st Pres blog

  • An Artist’s Prayer featured on the Coffee and Crumbs Instagram

  • I had five watercolors accepted to a local art show

  • I was shocked and honored to win 1st place in my local library writing contest. I will share the piece, Making A List, that honors the memory of my grandmother when I’m able, and my story will get to live in a book at the library.

    

• Making new friends and connections, asking for people’s numbers, and introducing myself to other parents at school pick up.

Kids

Kids live in the present and their lives are filled with so much newness even without a move. My kids (6 and 8) at least aren’t sitting around pining away for the life we left. They are fully here.

• My kids learned to ski and ride bikes

• My son tried out for Little League and performed in two dance performances

• My daughter learned to read and did dance class and performances

Spouse

• My husband started cold plunging and was in two musicals with a local theater company

Relationships

This has been the trickiest part of the move. Staying connected to people from San Diego, while trying to be present in our new life here.

• My Voxer group and a few other close friends were a lifeline to my old self

• We re-started family dinners with our good friends who moved to Coeur d’Alene in 2020, and it has been a gift to do life together again (though we grieve the friends and family we left)

• My parents and in-laws have visited multiple times and keep in touch via Facetime

• We visited SD four times (one was for surgery, so it doesn’t count)– and I was still able to attend a friends’ baby shower and a girls weekend with my college friends

Mental health

• OCD remission–is this a thing? Because OCD is such a small part of my life now. I no longer want to work in mental health or finish my OCD memoir because I have the luxury of not thinking about OCD. I never thought I would be in this place.

• It has worked wonders for my mental health to not have to grade college essays in the age of ChatGPT

Spiritual health

• Job teaching Sunday school at a church that models compassion and humility and seeks to love first. Being able to tell the kids “I don’t know” is healing something in me.

• Growth in self-trust / banished the voice of Poison/OCD/self-doubt–it’s literally soooo quiet in my mind and it’s amazing how much easier it is to believe God loves me when I don’t have a constant inner critic berating everything I do.

Downsizing

• Smaller house

• Less things (spent 6 months decluttering before the move!)

• 1 car

• No grading essays or department meetings!

When we moved, I downsized my house and in-real-life friends and work and schedule and obligations, but the people, places, and practices I love are growing exponentially. I am learning so much about myself and what I’m capable of. I am constantly delighted and surprised, instead of anxious, torn, and overwhelmed.

I am not saying that you should move or moving will fix your life if you’re currently having a hard time. In fact, moving has the opposite effect in the short term.

But I can’t deny that my move offered a fresh start/catalyst for some changes I was trying so hard to integrate into my life in San Diego.

Sometimes a change of scenery is helpful, especially with OCD/mental health. It helped me immensely to be in a place with less triggers and less history of giving in to compulsions/obsessions/fear-based behavior. In my new town, I am not bombarded by the same triggers or locked into the same habits. I was able to build on the foundation of growth and healing I had been fighting tooth and nail for in San Diego².

I am still committed to not figuring it out/deciding if the move was a good idea or if we will be here permanently.

I do know the move unleashed something in me. A zest for new experiences and an ability to see the good in most situations (instead of constantly scanning for errors and threats). My dear friend Krista had told me moving would be so much harder because I have OCD. I wonder if the payoff has been greater because of OCD as well. Because it cost so much to step into uncertainty. But that agony allowed my freedom.

If I can move my family out of state with no assurances we were making the right choice, I can do anything. I still feel this way.

I’m delighted and relieved that the factors I thought would make a difference in my quality of life really have: more margin, slower pace, proximity to nature, less obligations. Even in my wildest hopes, I did not picture myself submerged in a frozen lake and loving it, OCD-free, taking on a new art form, or considering joining an adult softball league.

What once felt like sinking, losing, all-consuming grief has opened into possibility.

Instead of a rock dropped to the bottom of a lake, I am in the lake, floating, and delighting that the future is unknowable.

1. Exposure and Response Prevention is a tool I have used to battle OCD and have found to be life-changing for me.

2. This is not prescriptive for healing. I battled those same triggers over and over for years before we left SD and this tedious work set the stage for healing I’ve experienced since the move.)