A Letter on When We Choose Not to Go
My Dearest Friend,
In this life that is so often shaped by distance and travel, we tend to tell the stories of how we made it work. The flights we booked, the miles we crossed, the ways we showed up anyway… the proof, offered again and again, that we will move heaven and earth to be present where it matters.
We speak of the things we made it to, but far less often of the things we missed. And almost never of the things we chose not to go to.
Because there is something harder to name in those moments… the quiet, internal knowing that you could go, that you might even enjoy it, that you would likely find something meaningful there… and still, for reasons that do not translate neatly to anyone else, you do not.
There was a conference this week that I was meant to attend. I had been invited after receiving an award, one of those opportunities that feels both like an honor and an expectation (the kind that sits just heavy enough on your shoulders that you begin to feel what you should do long before you decide what you will do). In another year, I would have been on the first flight out.
But instead, I hesitated.
I opened the flight page more times than I can count, watching the prices climb as the days slipped by. Each time I hovered over the button to purchase the ticket, I found a reason to wait… just one more day, just one more check, just one more moment to be sure.
And somewhere in the repetition of that—sixth, seventh, eighth time—I realized that I was not undecided.
I was not going.
When I finally said it out loud, what I felt first was relief… a quiet, steady exhale that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
And then, almost immediately, guilt.
Because I should have wanted to go. I had been given something not everyone receives. People had supported me, believed in me, voted for me. What did it mean to step away from that? What did it say about me if I didn’t take the opportunity placed in front of me?
There were other questions too, quieter but no less persistent. What does it teach my children if their father can leave for work, but their mother cannot? What does it say to my daughter about the shape of a woman’s life? What does it say about me, when I am someone who encourages others to step into new spaces… and yet here I was, hesitating at the threshold of one myself?
And beneath all of that were the realities that do not fit into clean explanations. The cost of a week away in a season where every dollar is already spoken for as we prepare to move. The weight of leaving my children in these last weeks before everything begins to shift. The quiet awareness that we are standing in that in-between space—no longer settled, not yet gone—where even small disruptions feel larger than they should.
It would have been possible to go. I know that.
I would have made the best of it, because I always do. I would have pushed through the initial discomfort (that strange mix of being both outgoing and deeply shy), found my footing in the room, introduced myself, sat at tables with strangers until they were no longer strangers. There would have been value there. Connection there. Something gained from the experience.
And still… something in me resisted. Not just fear, though that was certainly part of it, but something quieter. A kind of internal steadiness that kept saying, not now.
This was not the first time I have chosen not to go.
There have been weddings I did not attend… and holidays we did not travel home for, even when we could have. Family reunions that came and went while we stayed where we were. Not because we didn’t care, but because the cost of getting there was more than a plane ticket. Time, distance, logistics, the ripple effect of leaving one life to step briefly into another… sometimes what should have been a simple trip becomes weeks of disruption, of quarantine, of absence that stretches far beyond the event itself. There have been seasons where movement itself was the strain, where choosing to stay still—just for a moment—mattered more than showing up somewhere else, even somewhere important.
And so I have said no.
Not lightly. Not easily. But intentionally.
The things we choose not to go to still ache. They do not become easier simply because the decision was ours to make.
But there is something different in that ache… a quiet exhale beneath it. A recognition that the decision, however complicated, was aligned with the life we are actually living… not the one that exists on paper, not the one that would be easier to explain, but the one we wake up in each day.
Choosing not to go to the conference did not mean I did not care about it. It did not mean I was ungrateful, or incapable, or unwilling to step into something new.
It meant that in this particular season, something else mattered more.
I was choosing stability in a time that already feels unsteady. I was choosing to be present in these last ordinary days before they are no longer ordinary. I was choosing to listen to the part of myself that hesitated—not as weakness, but as information.
Because if I had truly wanted to go, I would have bought the ticket the first time.
Instead, I paused… and paused again… and again.
Until I was finally willing to admit that the resistance itself was an answer.
And so, instead of forcing myself into a space that did not fit, I found a different way to meet the same need. Not a lesser version, not something to make up for what I was missing, but an alternative that made sense for this moment… something that allowed for learning, for connection, for growth, without asking me to step outside the capacity I actually have right now.
In another year, the right choice might have been the conference. In another season, I might have needed the fullness of that experience—the travel, the room, the conversations that only happen when you are physically present.
But in this season, what I needed was flexibility. The ability to step in and out, to learn while still being anchored in the life that is asking so much of me at the moment (packing lists and appointments and end-of-year celebrations and all the quiet goodbyes that come before a move). Not a life that looks good on paper… but the one I am actually living.
And so that is what I chose.
The Lesson
Not every good opportunity belongs to every season. Some ask for more of us than they appear to at first glance—time we do not have, energy already spoken for, a kind of presence that would pull us away from something we are not willing to set down. And so the question shifts, almost quietly, from is this good? to does this fit the life I am actually living right now?
There is a steadiness in answering that honestly… even when the answer is no, even when the no carries its own kind of grief. Because choosing in alignment with your capacity is not the same as missing out. It is an act of care—for your time, your family, your work, and the version of yourself that must live inside all of it. There will be other rooms, other seasons, other yeses. This moment asks only that you choose your life as it is—not the version that reads well, not the version that is easiest to explain, but the one that is real—and trust that it is enough.
To the Spouse Learning to Choose for This Season,
If you are standing in that space now—holding an opportunity in one hand and the reality of your life in the other—I want you to know this (even if you only borrow the words until you believe them):
Both choices can be valid.
Going is valid.
Not going is valid.
You do not have to prove your worth by saying yes to everything that is offered to you. You do not have to justify your capacity to anyone outside of your own life.
You are allowed to look at your days as they actually are, not as they appear from the outside, and decide what fits within them… and what does not.
You are allowed to choose your season.
Even when it aches. Even when it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. Even when a part of you wishes the answer had been different.
