Ways I'm shifting my attitude in response to changes in my life
This year has forced me to wrestle with change – and how I manage it and respond to it. As I work through what I'm learning, the easiest place to for me to start is the changes in my travel habits, the part of my life most sensitive to external change and internal attitude shifts.
I've been trying to slow down for years. Some days are better than others. None of those days were usually on a trip. Until New Orleans.
Everything about my trip to New Orleans was slow and easeful. I opted for a 13hr train ride instead of the 1.5hr flight. I had a one goal, one reservation, one commitment. My anchor was my itinerary. The only thing I had to do in New Orleans was kayak for three hours in a swamp. In addition to paddling alongside young alligators, I did end up eating beignets, running down Bourbon Street on a Sunday morning, hearing jazz on the street, seeing an art exhibit about HBCU marching bands, and becoming besties with my hotel’s security guard, Brandon. But I was able to do all of those things because I gave myself so much time and space to do so.
Even when I had a strong anchor for a trip, I felt I had to maximize my time in whatever city I found myself in because I didn’t know if or when I’d return (which is hilarious in the context of Chicago; I’ve been nearly 10 times since 2021)
In June 2023, on the heels of Steve Lacy’s Gemini Rights (2022), I ventured to Chicago to see him in Riis Park (a very long way from downtown Chicago, as I came to learn). As you can see below in the color-coordinated, emoji-punctuated itinerary, I planned to do much more than go see Steve Lacy on a Friday night.
I spent the same amount of time (four days) in both Chicago and New Orleans. But the pace of those trips were entirely different. In Chicago, I had a ticketed obligation every single day, alongside social engagements and even a kayak reservation hours before Steve Lacy’s concert. Not to say that I regret that trip or my approach by any means. I had a great time. I remember that trip vividly. I had them red boho braids and them pink ombre nails, baby I looked and felt good. I had a crazyyy good lobster roll downtown. A picture I took while paddling on Monroe Harbor is hanging on my living room wall as we speak. Did I enjoy that trip to Chicago? Absolutely. Would I plan my next trip to Chicago like that? Not at all.
I will say, a lot has happened in the two years between those trips that perhaps add color to that change. In 2023 Chicago, I was a few months into unemployment after my first layoff, still hopeful and committed to any sense of normalcy I could get, which meant going on the trips I had planned and paid for the fall before. By 2025 New Orleans, I’ve traveled a bit more, been laid off a few more times, and not as pressed to see everything the world has to offer; I just wanted to see the swamp.
The shift here is that I don’t have to approach anything, but especially travel, with a scarcity mindset. I don’t have to see everything in four days. I don’t have to get dinner with everyone I know in one weekend. I don’t have to “make the most” of my time in a city. I released that pressure and decided to narrow my focus. What’s nice is that the more narrow I made my focus, the more pleasantly surprised I was at how the rest of my time just naturally passed in joyful and easeful ways.
There was a time when once I committed to a trip – symbolized formally with a page on my Notion board – it was almost certainly going to happen.
That time has now passed.
Where I used to pride myself on doing what I said I was going to do, I’ve now disconnected my sense of integrity from my follow through on every trip idea that crosses my mind. I feel relief in canceled trips, not because I didn't want to go, but because the task of execution is off my shoulders.
After committing to moving out of my mother's house while on a trip in Seattle in April, I was immediately faced with a test of that commitment: what I was going to do about a trip I planned with a friend to Lisbon and London in the fall. I knew that trip, if I took it, would delay my goal. I was tired of delays that were a result of my own actions. So, despite the grief and shame and fear of disappointing my friend, I canceled it. They didn’t talk to me for several months, and our relationship hasn’t really rebounded fully from that. But it’s something I had to be okay with. It’s something I had to let go.
I was set to stay with my sister and niece for a week in Los Angeles, with a Butcher Brown concert and a hike through Joshua Tree National Park on the itinerary. Family, jazz, and hiking? A dream, truly.
But said sister and niece fell ill mere days before my arrival, which made it very unwise to stay with them at their home. The AirBnB prices were astronomical. So I canceled (and considered the small cost of my Butcher Brown ticket a benevolent donation to jazz and live music).
Rather than feel angry or annoyed or disappointed at the turn of events, I simply let it go. I've been to Los Angeles. I've seen Butcher Brown. My sister and niece are coming to Atlanta soon. I'll get to Joshua Tree eventually. In the grand scheme of things, concert ticket aside, nothing really was lost. So I felt no shame and no guilt for not following through on a plan I made.
It's not that I'm less committed (I'm not a flake). It's just that I'm less attached to specific outcomes – in travel, but also things like dating, career, and friendships. If this season of change has done nothing else, it's forced me to loosen my grip, lower the stakes, right size my view of things, and clarify my perspective. Now these things don't hold as much weight as they used to because I am not as attached to the outcome as I was before.
I learned that there are some things I have to look at and say "I can't care this much about that. I have to let it go." And then do it.
I used to pride myself on being the planner friend. It gave me a feeling of importance, made me feel capable and in control, and it gave me a sense of value in my friend groups.
It also left me feeling resentful, fatigued, and disappointed time and time again.
The funny thing about the weight of being the planner friend is that it's often self-inflicted. Nobody ever asked me "Thalia, plan this whole trip for us and manage it once we're on the trip so we can just send you the money, show up, and relax while you do most of the work." I did that. I did it because I wanted to be in control. I did it because I thought I had to earn the love and respect of my friends. I did it because I thought that if I didn't do it, no one else would.
The disappointment came when I stopped being the planner friend, things stopped getting planned. But, in the spirit of letting go, I had to be okay with that. I had to accept it and move on. I had to recognize that just because "I'm good at planning" doesn't mean that I have to do it all the time. Yes, I usually have fun when I plan things, but that fun (and control) came at an emotional cost that I'm no longer willing to pay.
Now? I've set boundaries for myself. If it's a group trip, it has to be a group effort. Otherwise, I will not go. I'm applying this to other social/collaborative experiences too. I've gotten stood up enough times now to know I can't invite just anyone to get dinner. I can't be the only person – on a trip, at a lunch, in a partnership, on a project, in a meeting – to care. I will not do it.
An answered prayer came in the form of being friends with other planner friends. The relief is hard to put into words. I could've cried, seeing that everyone had already made their own AirBnB wishlist and actually had comprehensive opinions about where we went, where we stayed, and what we did. Seeing someone else had a color-coded planning document with key details clearly listed. It was such a joyful and collaborative planning experience because no one person was pulling all of the weight. We all put in work. All of our brains were on and engaged. We did it together.
Change is teaching me that that’s what I actually wanted all along. I didn’t want a perfectly planned and executed trip. I just wanted to know that I'm not in this alone, whatever this is. I’m learning that true collaboration offers a joy that control can never provide.
Now this trip hasn't actually happened yet. Only time will tell how the actual trip itself goes. But I am confident, perhaps more confident than I've ever been about a group trip, that I will not be in this by myself, that I will not act like I have to earn the love and respect of my friends by performing as the planner friend, and that the success of this trip will not be all on me. I'm grateful already.
To recap, by digging into how I manage change, I've learned that
