Arrival

1992 — my first autumn in Europe.

I didn’t know where the path would lead, only that something in me trusted the journey. The Alps became my first witness to becoming.

October 19, 1992 — The Day I Trusted My Instincts and Leapt Into the Unknown

For every woman who has ever trusted her own knowing.

Every year on this day, I pause to remember the moment that changed everything —
the day I first arrived in Germany in 1992.
I didn’t yet know I was beginning the rest of my life.
I only knew that something inside me whispered go,
and for the first time, I listened.

The Call to Move

Thirty-three years ago, I stepped off a plane with a single suitcase,
a story still being written,
and a heart that dared to trust its own rhythm.

Just a few months before that flight, I had followed a pull I couldn’t explain —
a sudden need to visit my grandmother in South Carolina.
It wasn’t a plan.
It was a knowing.

That journey taught me something I have carried ever since:
intuition is not random.
It is the body’s way of remembering truth
before the mind catches up.

That same knowing — that quiet, persistent whisper —
was what carried me across the ocean.

Germany wasn’t part of any roadmap.
It was instinct.
A leap into uncertainty that became the first real conversation
I ever had with myself.

What Courage Really Feels Like

Courage rarely looks like confidence.
It looks like trembling hands, tearful goodbyes,
and a single deep breath before stepping into the unknown.

That’s what arrival taught me —
that movement itself is sometimes the healing.
That even when fear hums beneath your ribs,
you can still walk forward.

Over the years, that same trust has guided me
through loss and recovery,
through motherhood and rebirth,
through illness and awakening.

It is the same trust I now witness in others —
in that quiet, trembling moment
when they finally choose themselves.

A Life of Many Arrivals

Since that first day in Germany,
there have been countless arrivals:

the day I became a mother.
the day I began to write again.
the day I survived.
the day I finally found stillness.

Each one a soft revolution.
Each one a reminder that courage isn’t about certainty —
it’s about trust.

Love, Redefined

Not the kind found in another person,
but the kind you discover within yourself
when you dare to begin again.

That’s the love I celebrate on this day —
the love born from listening,
from leaping,
from learning that arrival is not a destination,
but a lifelong practice of saying yes
to your own becoming.

When I close my eyes,
I still see that young woman
stepping off the plane —
uncertain, hopeful,
trembling with possibility.

She didn’t yet know who she would become.
But she believed in something greater than fear:
the promise of what can happen
when you choose to arrive.

**Because life, at its most honest,

is not a series of endings.**

It is a lifetime of arrivals.

Author’s Note

Leigh William is a psychologist, humanitarian, and writer whose work centers on women, children, and families. Her practice and writing explore intuition, embodiment, and the lifelong process of becoming. She is currently writing aboard her sailing vessel, SY Simplicity, while completing her MSc thesis on water-centered somatic healing for maternal mood disorders.