Change, and my Inner Voice...

Dear Diary...

I am sorry, it’s been quite a while. And to be honest, I almost forgot how to do this, how to empty my mind gently onto a blank page without forcing sense or structure. Admittedly, I had thought of writing many times in the last few months, but my hands, for different reasons, stayed still. Perhaps because my life itself was too loud, too full of abrupt motions, new faces, anxious recalibrations. And that's what I want to divulge today.

So yeah, I left my old firm. After more than five years of building, learning, trying to matter, I left. And I joined Deloitte. It still feels odd to write that, as though I’m speaking of someone else. It was a big move, maybe the biggest in my professional life so far, and it changed everything about my days — the people I greet each morning, the subtle ambitions that hang in the air, even the way I introduce myself.

I want to say I was brave, but the truth is, it was more necessity than courage. The old place had run its course. I was beginning to feel like a tree in stale soil, roots tangled around too-familiar stones. Deloitte offered me with a different light, sharper winds. I needed that.

Still, I miss it sometimes, the old firm, the place I had called home for so long a time. I miss everything. I miss the casual ease of mastery, the unspoken rhythms I knew so well. Now I am back to proving, performing, polishing. I guess that is the rhythm of life: seasons of comfort followed by seasons of stretch.

It was in this stretch that my writing went silent. It’s strange how change, even when chosen, can hush the inner voice. My thoughts became private even to me, just little bursts of unease or half-formed excitement that I never paused long enough to catch.

But tonight I wanted to come back here, to this old quiet trusted corner.
Not necessarily to say anything profound, only to lay down a small marker: that I am still here. That I never left. Yes, I made a leap. And I survived it. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find that rhythm, and be here again more often.

Take care now...

#SladenSpeaks
#IfWordsWereNudes