I read somewhere that transformation—an internal change that women experience—is a part of reinvention.

Women’s friends and family will notice the transformation. They will wonder what is different about them.

I am in a daydream: the sun shines even amidst the gray clouds hanging in the sky—I go out to ride my bike even if I am going to get wet. Slogging rain off me, I sit at a table drinking tea. Finding a version of myself that moves.

My brother died in November.

While I had talked to him more recently over the last year, I hadn’t seen him more than a few times in the last twenty years. We weren’t close and I thought maybe I didn’t even know him. When I found out he died, I didn’t cry. I just went back to sleep.

For years, I believed that staying in motion was how I kept myself safe.

I lay awake in bed most nights, replaying and rehearsing hard and unpleasant conversations in my head, cataloguing my points and chastising myself when I forget them.

This essay is rooted in my lived experience as a woman, a mother, and a traveler who writes about autonomy, belonging, and everyday decision-making.

While food is the surface subject, the essay examines broader themes of consent, power, and how early conditioning around “small” choices can echo into adulthood.

Last weekend I was in Chicago.

Sitting on the couch in the Airbnb, I fumbled through streaming apps trying to find the Bills game. A weak Wi-Fi signal hampering my efforts. The outcome—important to playoff seeding.

I was in Dakar. The horn buzzed loudly and the hum of the baggage carousel started.

The conveyor belt lurched forward and the suitcases—colorful sets, plain black ones, large boxes—began passing through the black rubber flaps. I stood among the crowd, patiently looking for my small gray and brown suitcase. The one I carried past the check-in desk back in Washington DC. The one I asked the desk agent to gate check for me.

Since I started traveling three years ago, it has become a way to stay moving.

To find belonging within myself. So, with every opportunity I get, I book a trip.

After a week of winding my way from DC to Oxford to Chicago and then flying back east again, I’ve had hours of quiet in cars and airports—the kind of hours that make you sit with the questions you’ve been avoiding. One of them: What is Home?