As an only child, I learned early how to entertain myself. Now, in my thirties, I’ve mastered the art of being alone. Solo dinners. Movie dates. Sitting on the balcony in complete silence. They all belong in the hall of fame of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

But traveling has taught me that community isn’t something that just happens. It’s something you build.

Living abroad, I knew I wanted more than beautiful places to visit. I wanted to strengthen my muscles of connection—to meet new people, hear new perspectives, and maybe even leave this chapter with a few lifelong friends.

So I went back to an old-faithful toolkit: the one I built growing up as an Army brat.

Moving often meant becoming “the new kid” over and over again. Making friends didn’t feel optional; it was essential. Looking back, I realized the same lessons still work today.

It starts with one.

And that one is me.

If I wanted genuine friendships, they had to begin with things I genuinely enjoy. So instead of forcing myself into spaces that didn’t feel like me, I looked for the things I’d naturally do anyway: creative writing classes, Toastmasters meetings, and a neighborhood cocktail bar I found myself returning to.

Then came step two.

Introduce yourself.

Back in college, I loved networking events because I’d play a little game with myself. If I made eye contact with someone for three seconds, I had to walk over and say hello.

Sometimes we’d talk for two minutes. Sometimes twenty.

Either way, I counted it as a win.

When the conversation ended, I’d look around the room and play again.

It turns out that game works just as well for friendship as it does for networking.

Most people aren’t waiting for the perfect introduction. They’re just waiting for someone to break the ice.

The final step is the hardest.

Extend the invitation.

And say yes when one is extended to you.

That’s where acquaintances become friends.

After meeting someone, I’d send a quick message the next time I was headed to a writing class or grabbing a drink. Sometimes they came. Sometimes they didn’t.

Both were okay.

When someone invited me somewhere, I tried to say yes—even when my instinct was to choose another chill night at home.

For someone who genuinely loves solitude, that has been the biggest stretch.

But community isn’t built through proximity.

It’s built through showing up.

People often say making friends as an adult is hard. But I think it’s always been like this.

The difference is that, as kids, we didn’t have nearly as many ways to avoid each other. We went to school, practice, daycare, or outside to play with the neighbors. We kept running into one another until there was room for friendship to grow.

Now it’s easy to order dinner, work from home, watch a movie, and spend an entire weekend without speaking to anyone new.

Connection requires a little more intention.

This season of travel has reminded me how rewarding that intention can be.

Some of the people I’ve met may become lifelong friends. Others may remain beautiful memories tied to a particular city and season of life.

Either way, I’m grateful.

Because community doesn’t always have to last forever to matter.

Sometimes the people who walk alongside you for one chapter are exactly who you needed for that chapter. And looking back, every one of those relationships started the same way.

Someone said hello!

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For me, this was an immediate, HELL NO!

As we rode from the airport to the heart of Bangkok, I couldn’t imagine possessing the bravery or the core strength I thought was required to hop on the back of one of those things.

My anxiety was projecting a giant yellow caution sign with flashing DANGER AHEAD signals. Too risky. Too scary. Too dangerous.

Every instinct in my body was telling me to stay safely inside a car. But I didn’t come this far to let fear run my board.

I cannot avoid everything that makes me scared and nervous. If I did, I’d still be sitting at home dreaming about this trip instead of living it.

So I made a compromise with myself and established some entry rules to honor my nerves while still building my courage.

Jas’ First-Time Rider Rulers:

1. Only daytime rides.

2. 15 minutes or less.

3. Psalm 23 on repeat.

Rule 3 is easily the most important. And ultimately, the foundation that calmed my anxiety not just on the scooter but in my life.

Now, by no means do I consider the streets of Bangkok “the valley of the shadow of death,” but it was the location that made David’s words real for me.

God is with me and keeps me safe.

Over time, that message not only reassured me about the scooters but also gave me comfort in my heart and mind. In crowded malls, when I felt overwhelmed. At street markets, when I was trying new food. Even on the mornings when I woke up with that familiar little buzz of capitalism whispering questions about my productivity, ambition, and what comes next…

“Thou art with me”.

By the time we got to Vietnam, I wasn’t just riding scooters but taking driving lessons from my husband. He knew we could do it, and we needed to be equipped and prepared with this new life skill.

I wouldn’t say my anxiety disappeared, but it’s not in charge. I still feel the fear when it comes, but then I choose to feel something else. Something that makes me feel a little stronger in the midst of the scary parts.

Anthony Bourdain once said, “One of the great joys of life is riding a scooter through Vietnam,” and I intend to experience that joy, anxiety be damned!

Beyond that, I never felt passionate enough about one thing to build an entire business around it. Then I came to Thailand.

Over the last two months, I’ve met some badass women. Restaurant owners. Hotel operators. Marketers. Museum founders. Fashion curators. Women who seem entirely unconcerned with whether an industry was designed for them, because they plan to succeed in it anyway.

Over dinner in Chiang Mai, a new friend shared her plans of helping local farmers earn more money by introducing higher-value crops. She was warm and candid about her passion for helping people both learn new skills and make more money. She even shared her plans to become a university professor so she can continue sharing what she’s learned. And after only a few days of hanging out, I’d re-enroll just to sit in her class when the time comes.

A few days later at a lecture in Bangkok, I met a woman who founded a museum inspired by abandoned and unfinished buildings. Where most people saw neglected spaces, she saw possibility—gathering places. Art spaces. Infrastructure totally reclaimed by the communities it was meant to serve.

Different industries. Same instinct.

See a problem. Imagine something better. Build it.

Somewhere between those conversations, I realized I’d been misunderstanding entrepreneurship for years. I thought it was about becoming your own boss, making money, and building something for yourself.

But what if entrepreneurship is simply another form of service?

I’ve spent most of my career in hospitality and events. Creating spaces where people feel welcomed, connected, and cared for. Even outside of work, I’ve always gravitated toward service. Volunteer projects. Community initiatives. Fundraisers. If there is a sign-up sheet nearby, my name is already on it.

The women I’ve met here didn’t inspire me because of their sucess. They inspired me because they built things that are useful.

For years, I said I wasn’t an entrepreneur. Now I’m not so sure. And for the first time, I have a few ideas worth building!

Now, before we start side-eyeing the newlywed with suspiciously traditional ideas, hear me out.

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The dream of waking up everyday without anything you have to do is intoxicating.

The reality, for me, has been sobering. Even occasionally stiff.

“I can do whatever I want today.”
quickly becomes
“What do I actually want to do today… tomorrow… with my life?”

I’m choosing kindness in this season.

Some days, I ask those questions and roll back over, close the blinds, and go back to sleep.

Other days, I wake up early and call my family, usually catching them at the end of their day or somewhere between dinner and winding down. Before I know it, an hour is gone. Two, if I’m lucky.

Time moves, whether I decide what to do with it or not.

There’s structure to traditional work that I didn’t fully appreciate until it was gone.

Eight hours where your role is clear. Your priorities are defined. Your attention is spoken for.

Going to work gives you time to step outside of your own life. Even encouragement to prioritize the needs of everyone but yourself.

And that, in its own way, is a luxury.

I used to romanticize my husband’s freedom.

As a founder, his time looked like his own. His schedule, his decisions, his direction. From the outside, it seemed like control. Like never having to do anything you didn’t want to do.

I loved that he has the ability to spend all his time on what matters most to him.

But now that the same freedom has found me, I see it differently.

It feels like responsibility.

Freedom, it turns out, isn’t the absence of structure. It’s the requirement to create it.

And just that quickly, I think I forgot how.

So I’m choosing something smaller.

A practice inspired by one of my favorite books, The ONE Thing.

In the book, Keller poses a simple question:

What is the one thing that, by doing it, makes everything else easier—or unnecessary?

Right now, that means committing to one thing each day.

Yesterday, it was doing the laundry.
Today, it’s trying a new coffee shop.
Tomorrow… date night?

It’s not ambitious. It’s not even impressive.

But it is intentional.

I didn’t make this leap just to fill my days with a different kind of noise.

This isn’t about replacing one structure with another.

It’s about learning how to move through my life with more awareness. More choice. More care.

Right now, I don’t have a routine. I don’t have a system. I don’t have a perfect answer to what I’m doing with my life.

But I have time.

And I’m learning how to meet it—one thing at a time.

-Jas!

So… let’s recap.

Seattle

Twelve hours in Seattle and somehow the weather was perfect. Sunny, warm, clear skies—no notes.

We saw Mount Rainier the second we left the airport and both had that same wide-eyed “omg look at that mountain” moment.

I loved Seattle immediately. Grey’s didn’t do her justice.

We went straight to the Quad at the University of Washington and landed right in peak bloom.

The cherry blossoms were unreal. The kind of beauty that makes you slow down without thinking.

We sat there way longer than planned—until our hunger decided, it’s time to eat!

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And… we really did it.

Packed it all up, said our goodbyes, got on the plane, and now I’m waking up on the other side of the world, and this is my life now.

People love to say, “Just take the leap.” It sounds good. It’s motivating. It looks great in a caption.

But no one is saying —how?

How do you know when it’s time? How do you know it’s worth it? And once you jump, how do you not completely lose your mind on the way down?

For me, it wasn’t one big dramatic moment. It was a build. A quiet stacking of signals that got harder and harder to ignore.

My career, one I genuinely love, was good. Solid. Respectable. But if I’m being honest, it wasn’t stretching me the way I knew I could be stretched and challenged.

Sometimes “good” is the hardest place to leave, because nothing is forcing you to go.

My friendships were in a really great place. Not surface, not forced, just real. The kind where everyone is in their own lane but still showing up for each other in the ways we needed.

My family is good. Healthy. Happy. Living their lives in a way that made it very hard to use them as an excuse to stay still.

And then one night, we’re at dinner, nothing crazy going on, and my husband just says, “Let’s go. We can do this. It’s better if we do it together.”

No big speech. No 10-step plan. Just… certainty.

And for me, that was enough.

Not because everything in my life was falling apart, but because everything in my life was good enough that I didn’t need to stay out of fear.

I think that’s the part people skip.

The leap isn’t always about escaping something bad. Sometimes it’s about answering something better.

So we decided. And then we prepared.

Because the leap doesn’t actually start when you leave. It starts with how you choose to go.

We didn’t burn bridges. We reinforced them.

We spent more time with our people, not rushed, not distracted. We sat at dinner a little longer. We had the conversations you usually assume you’ll get to later.

We went back to our favorite places. Ordered the same things. Let it all feel familiar one more time.

And we told people the truth. “We’re selling everything and moving to Thailand… for three months. Maybe longer.”

Which, fair, sounds a little unhinged out loud. We get it!

We gave people space to react, to process, to ask questions we didn’t fully have answers to.

And then we kept moving.

If I had to name the one thing that made this feel right, it’s this.

We leaped with love.

Not pressure. Not frustration. Not “I need to get out of here.” Love for our life, our people, and whatever could be waiting on the other side.

And then we got here.

For the last seven days, I’ve been waking up to a skyline that still feels a little unreal.

Like… this is actually where we are. This is the view. This is the life we chose.

I thought landing would feel like clarity, like everything would suddenly make perfect sense.

But it doesn’t.

It feels much quieter than that. More like a pause. A moment to sit in what you just did and realize… oh. We really jumped, and maybe we can fly* - tbd.

For now, we’re here.

Seven days in. A new skyline. A different rhythm.

Not everything figured out, just enough to know this wasn’t a mistake.

And all the love we could have been leaving; once again, has met us exactly where we are.

-Jas!