Beginning Again.
For most of my adult life, I followed the path I was taught to want—college, career, stability, success. I built a 20-year career in marketing within the building design and construction industry, earned an MBA while working full-time, and climbed steadily upward. From the outside, my life looked good, and in many ways, it was.
But in 2023, something shifted. A two-week trip to Spain and Portugal changed something in me. I was drawn to the rhythm I witnessed there—families lingering in plazas, evenings unfolding slowly, conversation taking precedence over urgency. It wasn’t just travel I fell in love with, but a way of being that felt warmer, more human, and more spacious than the pace I had grown used to. I realized, almost with surprise, that I hadn’t thought about work once. I was simply there—and I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to live there.
Spain planted the seed for a different kind of life. (Tarragona, 2023)
When I returned home, that quiet knowing stayed with me. Early the next year, I unexpectedly lost my job. For the first time in two decades, I found myself without a job and standing at the edge of the unknown. Instead of returning to the life I had before, I chose to begin again.
I returned to photography and began writing again, rediscovering creative parts of myself I had quietly set aside. I started shaping a life centered on travel, storytelling, and long-term immersion in places that invite curiosity rather than urgency. Spain remained at the center of that vision—not simply as a destination, but as the place where this next chapter might take root.
In October 2024, during an extended return to Spain, Odisea was born—a space to share the images, stories, and reflections emerging from this unfolding chapter.
Following curiosity—even if the waves weren’t big. (Nazaré, Portugal, 2024)
I don’t claim to have everything figured out. I am deeply grateful for the life I built, and I’ve learned that it’s possible to want something more without rejecting what came before.
I’m choosing presence.
I’m choosing curiosity.
I’m choosing the unknown.
Spain is where this odyssey first took shape, and this summer, it’s where I’m moving to begin the next chapter. Teaching will provide structure as I continue building a life centered on travel, photography, and long-term immersion. Odisea will evolve alongside that journey—not as an escape from one life, but as a deliberate step into another.
If you’re standing at the edge of your own beginning, I hope this space reminds you that quiet courage is enough.
