The Long Walk (To A New) Home

In September, after 21 years of earning New Yorker cred, I moved to New Jersey. Asbury Park, to be exact (insert obligatory Bruce Springsteen reference here - fist pumps, screen doors slamming, etc.).

The move may have seemed sudden, but behind it was a slow burn, a quiet unfolding, an internal and external experiment - a process that drew heavily on the principles of adaptive leadership. (Though I didn’t realize it at the time.)

The Walls Were Closing In

It started when COVID hit and I unexpectedly and suddenly, at 39 years old, moved back in with my parents for six months. Like many, I rediscovered the joys of space, literally and figuratively. The ability to walk without dodging crowds, to work in one room and eat in another, to end the day with others in the house.

Practice Runs and Parking Spots

Another pandemic surprise: I bought a car. My first since the high school hand-me-down, and suddenly I was someone who paid for parking in the city (annoying and expensive, for the record). I got used to driving and to being elsewhere for long periods of time: Woodstock in summer 2020, the Outer Banks in early 2021.

I was slowly building the muscle for a different kind of life - one with more motion, more perspective, more sky. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was rehearsing for a shift. Not a dramatic departure, just a quiet expansion.

When I returned to my New York apartment, it felt…tight. The energy of the city wasn’t what it had been. Or maybe I had changed. I tried all my usual tricks - new workspaces, adventurous weekends, a full social calendar - but this time, they didn’t work.

A Curious Pin on the Map

Enter: Asbury Park. A place I had barely considered growing up, despite it being less than 30 minutes away. But something about it tugged at me. So I started small with a long weekend in the summer of 2022 with a friend. We both left saying, “Wait…what is this place? And why haven’t we spent time here before?” I was intrigued. I wanted to return and see what more it had to offer.

After that summer, I sat in my discontent, unsure what to do about it. I got close to adopting a dog but that’s a story for another day. I wasn’t looking for a full reinvention. Just something more.

The idea of moving started taking up more space in my thoughts. I wasn’t interested in starting over socially or emotionally. I wanted to stay close to my people, the Northeast, the familiar. We often think change requires a dramatic leap, but sustainable change often lives at the edges.

Then came the fall of 2023. I enrolled in a weeklong adaptive leadership program with one of the framework’s original architects, Zander Grashow. I arrived feeling stuck and uncertain. Through the work of reframing my challenge, something clicked: just take one step. Go to Asbury Park, not for a vacation, but for real time.

The Adaptive Experiment

I ran an experiment. I rented a house in Asbury Park for a month in winter. I wanted to know how it really felt. Could I live here, solo, in a quieter rhythm, reliant more on my car than my feet? Could I step outside the habits that had defined most of my adult life?

The result? Nothing made me feel like it was a mistake. There was no dramatic clarity, just a steady inner sense that this was worth continuing.

But first, I had to come to terms with the loss. I moved, as we often do, because the gain felt bigger than the loss. But the loss was real. I would be farther from friends, my favorite places, my familiar rhythms. And more than anything, I had to grieve the shift in identity.

I had always taken pride in being a New Yorker - knowing the subway system, curating the perfect weekend for out-of-towners, embracing the city’s grit and glory. Letting go of that meant letting go of a version of myself I had lived into for two decades. That grieving mattered. Often, in change, we overlook the loss. But it deserves space.

I didn't let that grief stop me. In fact, acknowledging its presence was a signal that the choice had already been made. I started looking for a new home, and by June, I had found a house that felt like the right fit. I worked with a realtor, made the leap, and here I am. Greetings from Asbury Park.

On Change and Capacity

In adaptive leadership, we talk about the difference between technical fixes and adaptive work. Moving to Asbury wasn’t about changing my address. It was about tuning into what mattered, testing small shifts, listening to my gut (and my body), and honoring my evolving capacity.

This wasn’t a reinvention. It was a recalibration.

Change doesn’t always roar in. Sometimes, it arrives as a whisper, asking: What if this isn’t just a visit? What if it’s the beginning of something new?