When control finally lets go of you
I'm 11 days into a road trip, and I've figured out that I'm in a free fall with the universe without a net.
I was sharing this with a friend the other day, and he asked if I was going to die when I hit the ground. I said, "Yeah. My ego will die. And everything else I believed about myself seems to be wanting to die with it." He asked how I felt about that, and I didn't know how to answer. So he asked instead, "What do you smell right now?"
I said, "Clean air."
He said, "What are the emotions of clean air?"
I told him to f* off.
But what came out of that exchange was the truth: everything is falling apart, and nothing will be able to help me put myself back together. I had to sit in that for a moment. Because putting myself back together has always been my specialty. And for the first time, I don't think that's the assignment.
Leaving Without a Plan
11 days ago, I left my home with only a few days of planning so my landlady could sell my house. Just like that. Twenty-five years of building a life, and I packed my car and drove.
This has forced me to realize that I have to let go of what I believe is possible and sink into what's actually next — because I have no control over it. And I'm really good at control.
Most of my life, I've been in major control. Not because I'm a control freak — because I've lacked safety for so long. Safety in myself. Safety with others. Safety in my environments. Safety in my own business. Control has been my workaround. It's helped me show the world that I know what I'm doing. Being able to explain who I am gives me an identity. Being able to tell people what I do and how I can help them gives me purpose.
But when all of that is stripped away — when everything burns to the ground — I'm left with just how much I thought I knew and how little I really know.
This free fall seems to be perfectly on time. I can't hold onto anything. Even when I try, it goes through my fingers like sand. Even the way my friendships are shifting — I see the people closest to me stepping more and more into themselves and needing me less. And this needing-me thing? That's been part of the control. Being needed has felt important. But is it?
The Gap Year I Never Took
This feels like a monumental moment. Driving past some of the most beautiful places in the country, only to realize I have people around the world telling me I should come visit them. It feels like a gap year is about to begin. Something I planned on doing in college but never did because everything was so serious. Because making money was the most important thing. Because I had to be responsible. Because I had to be needed.
Now that I have basically nothing left, I realize I have the most important things: the deepest friendships. The most beautiful gift of freedom. A powerful mind. And a connection to the divine that I never knew would be possible.
I see now just how much I've been focused on things and stuff in the physical world rather than experiences. I've been so consumed with healing myself and supporting others in their healing that I haven't had the time to look up and see how much I've already accomplished.
The Morning I Almost Went Home
That morning I woke up with a head cold at 8000 feet of elevation, feeling like my head was being crushed. My first response was, "I'm just gonna go home." I was forty hours from my house and had another eight and a half hours to go north — further away from anything familiar.
But all of this had been planned well before I decided to do any of it. The amount of things that fell into place to make this road trip happen were nothing short of divine. So why would I stop the universe from showing me what's possible just because my little plans of needing to be needed and controlling the outcome feel so simple and so unreal at this point?
I didn't go home.
Asking for Help
I was talking to a friend and client recently about the fact that I needed support. And she told me something that stopped me cold: she was worried about giving me support because she thought I already knew everything. That I didn't actually need help.
It took her really sitting with it to realize — wait… Melanie is asking for help. She's actually asking. And I almost didn't give it to her because I assumed she didn't need it.
This is what happens when you build an identity around being the strong one. People stop offering. They stop checking in. Not because they don't care — but because you taught them you didn't need anything. And by the time you finally ask, they don't believe you.
I'm learning that asking for help — and actually receiving it — is one of the most beautiful ways of remembering that all of us have the ability to belong. Not because someone else decides we do. Because we decide to.
What I'm Finding in the Free Fall
A new friend of mine recently said she believes adulthood is a myth. That all of us are just older children trying to find our way. The more I grow, the more I see how much children know that adults have forgotten — because they haven't been trained to fit into a mold yet.
I've always been one to buck the mold. Even at my own detriment. Even when it pushed people away. But it wasn't until recently that I realized I needed to surround myself with even more powerful people — not so they could fix me, but so we could amplify each other.
Less healing. More me.
Less shame. More being.
Less trying so hard. More allowing.
The further I walk on this path, the more I see how tied up my identity has been in my work, my accomplishments, my relationships, my ability to be useful. And this entire idea of letting go of all of it feels like the most magnificent and terrifying free fall of my entire life.
After twenty-five years of morphing myself into someone I thought I needed to be — someone I believed was different, someone I believed was really stepping out — I realize now that I was doing everything I could to belong. Even when I never fit in.
It feels like I've been gone for a year instead of eleven days. I can see just how attached I've been to the life I had. I don't plan on changing that attachment overnight. But I do know this gap — this liminal space between now and everything I've ever desired — is necessary.
It's here to remind me that I must be humble. That I must show up for whatever comes. That I must fully trust that everything is working out for my highest good. The same thing I've taught everyone around me for years.
Because we teach what we need to learn the most.
What I Know Now
I know there's so much more to this story. But my focus keeps being pulled back to this beautiful present moment. A cozy car on a long highway. Stunning scenery. Visiting people I've never met before. Diving deeper into myself and who I'm here to be.
Finding my way in a vast universe of infinite possibilities.
Allowing myself to not know what's next. Or what's around each corner. Sitting in full wonder rather than temper tantrum.
This learning is going to take me to the deepest parts of myself. And I believe it will show me the truth I've been circling for years: I have always been exactly who I was meant to be.
I just had to lose everything to finally see it.
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