"If we need to, we can just move to Mexico and live for cheap."
I don't know if I've ever loved my wife more than when she said these words.
I'd been in a state of subtle panic, looking through old pictures from my very first solo travels. After years of trying, I'd built a remote income that gave me the option to live anywhere. I'd packed up my laptop, some spare clothes, and set off.
The world had felt open with possibility, whole continents ready to be explored. I thought I'd found my dream lifestyle for the next decade, at least: never stay in one place for more than a few months, another exotic destination always on the horizon.
My life would be summed up in one word: Adventure.
Instead, four years later, I'm married, renting an apartment in Manhattan, and working a full-time job. I looked around at the dozens of items that would never fit in a suitcase. I thought of the days ahead that would be filled with the same routine.
This wasn't part of the plan.
Back then, I'd prided myself on my willingness to sacrifice comfort for adventure, to live in cheap places like Mexico so I wouldn't need a full-time job I'd already decided was a kind of death.
I believed that most people sacrificed freedom for comfort, then learned to call the result adulthood. They'd reminisce about when life felt open, before deciding the "tolerable" was good enough.
I feared that I, too, was on the track toward sacrificing my vitality to maintain a life in one of the world's most expensive cities.
And it freaked me out.
But after Anna's words of reassurance and a deep breath, I knew in my heart that it wasn't true. We'd lived my "dream lifestyle" of nomadic adventure over the summer, and I found myself craving a return to our cozy Manhattan apartment. A home I hadn't had.
I've never experienced real roots. We moved 24 times before I was 18. Home was whatever fit in a suitcase and stability was relegated to the future, when we were living safely off-grid while the world fell apart around us.
But now, there was no reason to run. I could rest. That scared me.
At first, it seemed as if for the same old reasons: that I'd stop growing, stop pushing myself to be everything I could be.
But after sitting with the fear, a more startling truth emerged: if I wasn't adaptable or in motion, I didn't know what made me worth loving.
Why would someone love me if I'm just like everyone else?
I thought back to my childhood filled with instability. Adapting to the chaos was how I proved my worth. I prided myself on not needing roots. It's what made me special.
But now, I've stopped moving, and I sit with that question uneasy in my stomach: who am I if I'm not on the move?
It's not a question I can answer myself.
"We can always move to Mexico." The moment my wife said these words, my heart rate slowed, my jaw loosened, and I took a deep breath.
They put me at ease not only because they reassured me I wasn't trapped, but because they told me that whoever I was—the adventurous nomad or the typical city-dweller—she would be by my side.
This peace reminded me of a night only a few months into our relationship, when she'd made a comment that triggered a deep insecurity. I tensed up and braced for her abandonment.
Instead, she noticed that my shoulders were tight and spent the next half hour massaging them while singing to me. I journaled later: "I don't know if I've ever felt so cared for and loved."
She wasn't loving the Ryan who was adventurous and fearless. She was loving the Ryan who was anxious and afraid.
Maybe we'll still escape to Mexico or live any number of alternative lifestyles. Maybe not.
In the meantime, perhaps my work is to sit with the discomfort. To cherish the patient witness by my side. And to trust that I'll be enough, even standing still.