My life seems to have a theme every week. Sometimes I notice it right away. Sometimes it takes me until Thursday afternoon, sitting in a room full of half-packed boxes, wondering why we still own a baby changing table, before it clicks.
This week’s theme? Letting go.
Or… not.
We’ve spent the last three weeks cleaning out our apartment and storage unit with every intention of finally wrapping up our New York City life. We’ve been gone for five years. We are settled in Barbados. We don’t see ourselves moving back permanently any time soon. So naturally, we decided it was finally time to give up our apartment. Except…
It’s a rent-stabilized apartment.
If you’re a New Yorker, you might have just said to yourself, “What are you DOING?!” That has been the reaction from a lot of our friends and neighbors here. Not, “Oh, congratulations.” Not, “That must feel like closure.” Just…“WHY?!”
A little context for non-NY'ers, giving up a rent-stabilized apartment in this city is somewhere between donating your retirement savings and setting a winning lottery ticket on fire. We've gone through a 3 week mourning period.
Cue the universe intervening.
Halfway through the week, my husband gets a phone call. A friend of a friend of a friend’s daughter is moving to the city and needs a place. (Which, by the way, is exactly how every good apartment in New York changes hands.) And just like that…we’re keeping it… sort of. We’ve essentially kicked the decision another year down the road.
So here I am, sitting in an apartment surrounded by boxes I had every intention of sorting, donating, selling, or throwing away, looking around thinking, “Oh. That can just stay.”
Honestly? This is kind of my personality. I LOVE a to-do list. I love crossing things off. But I also have this funny habit of leaving certain things on the list for months… sometimes years… until eventually they just aren’t to-dos anymore. It's like magic!
Life changes. Circumstances change. Sometimes the thing itself changes. Not everything needs to be forced to completion. (My husband would disagree with me on ALL of this. Reference the Type A vs Type B email from a few weeks back.)
So yes, we’ve re-signed the lease. We’ll head back to Barbados in a month. And this little apartment with the leaky skylights, fourth-floor walk-up, and no washer-dryer gets to keep existing in the background of our lives for another year.
That's another item that will stay on the list...But here’s the thing I can’t put back on the list.
In two days, we drop Adina off at sleep away camp for the first time. I haven't even been been pretending I’m fine. I curled into bed next to her this morning and burst into tears. I'm downright distraught.
She's my tiny human sidekick and I can't imagine an entire week without her. And yes, I know. This is parenting. You’re supposed to let them grow. You’re supposed to let them leave. You’re supposed to celebrate their independence. blah blah blah.
I KNOW.
But if I’m being honest? The thought of her spending a whole week making memories that I don’t get to be part of absolutely breaks my heart. I see this entire parenting gig as wildly unfair. You spend years pouring everything you’ve got into this tiny human—physically, mentally, emotionally—only for the entire goal to be letting them go.
What kind of business model is that?
But if you were at my workshop this week you'll be reminded, this is exactly what our bodies ask us to do too. Let go. Not all at once. Little by little.
We let go of the body we had at twelve. Then the one we had before pregnancy. Then the one before postpartum. Then maybe the one before perimenopause.
Every stage asks us to loosen our grip on something familiar.
Sometimes we fight it. Sometimes we postpone it. Sometimes, like my apartment, we keep it around a little longer because we’re just not ready. And honestly? That’s okay too. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to “embrace change” with a smile plastered across our faces.
Sometimes change is exciting. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. Sometimes it’s your 9-yr old stroking your head, laughing at you and saying, it's ONLY a week, mama! (That response alone comforts me that I've done a good job as a parent.)
The beautiful thing about the body is that it doesn’t ask you to erase your past. It asks you to build on it and EVOLVE.
Every version of you is still there: The little girl who got her first period, the athlete, the woman who carried babies, the exhausted mom, the woman figuring out menopause. None of them disappeared. They’re just making room for someone new.
Maybe that’s why corrective exercise resonates with me so much. I’m not trying to get people back to who they used to be. I’m helping them become confident in who they are now. That’s a very different goal.
So this week I'm holding two very different truths:
One thing I can postpone.
One thing I can't.
One little apartment that gets another year.
One little lady who's ready to spread her wings whether I'm emotionally prepared or not.
I guess growth has always had terrible timing.
And maybe that's why I love the work I do so much. Every woman I work with is moving through some kind of transition. Pregnancy. Postpartum. Perimenopause. Menopause. Recovering from an injury. Getting back to movement after years away. On the surface they all look different, but underneath, they're asking the same question:
"How do I trust my body again?"
That's the conversation I love having.
Sometimes it's in a one-on-one session. Sometimes it's in a room full of women moving together. But the goal is always the same—to help you stop fighting your body and start understanding it.
If you're in New York this month, I'd love to meet you. If you want a personalized assessment, just email me: joanie@transformtion-nation.com and we'll set up a consultation and training session.
Or, if you'd rather dip your toe in first, come move with me at Freya Movement Studio on Monday, July 27. It's listed as a prenatal/postpartum class, but honestly? Any stage of womanhood is welcome. We all breathe. We all have cores. We all deserve to feel at home in our bodies.
And as always, if someone popped into your mind while you were reading this...please send it to them! Sometimes we all need a reminder that we're not the only ones learning how to let go.
Big love,
Coach Joanie
I let her eat pizza on the gross NYC subway Clearly I’m handling this “letting go” thing beautifully.
—Corrective Exercise Specialist, women’s wellness coach, and your go-to guide through every phase of womanhood. Because fitness, hormones, and real life aren’t always neat and tidy. Sign up for my weekly checks ins of expert tips, laugh-out-loud truths, and the kind of coaching that reminds you you’re not alone in this stage of life.
