Recently, I got a notice from my building asking if I’d like to renew my lease, something I normally anticipate months in advance as I start making plans for the coming year and all the changes it’ll bring. When it came in the mail this time, my first instinct was to start looking for another apartment on CraigsList, as usual. But before I could crack open my computer, a thought occurred to me—the first of its kind that I think I’ve ever had: I don’t want to move. After five years of packing up and switching spaces, I think I'm going to pass on the ritual this time around. Part of me is totally surprised. The other part of me is breathing a sigh of relief.

I love moving. Always have, and in every way. I’ve always liked the physical act of getting up and going. I danced for 11 years. I have that shaky-leg syndrome whenever I'm sitting down. I picked up and left home at 18 to move to New York--pretty much the city of movement--and I've hopped from apartment to apartment every year since. My mind relishes in distraction. I have a feather tattooed on me to remind myself of how beautiful it can be when things stir; some of the most special moments in my life have been when I felt things shift inside of me.

But for the first time, I think I’d like to stay where I am, in a little apartment made up of walls painted yellow and blue, decorated with pictures and art and shelves stacked with books; a little apartment that, occasionally, a little mouse scurries across; a little apartment with a rusty fire escape and not very much storage space; a little apartment that has grown me up in the past year in entirely unexpected ways. Yes, I think I’d like to stay where I am.

In yoga, Savasana, or corpse pose, is considered by some as the most challenging—you lie on your back, palms facing up, and remain perfectly still. What makes it so difficult is that you have every opportunity to move, you just choose not to. It's in this pose that you become acutely aware of every single swing and vibration in your body, reminding your senses of how much we miss in the shuffle. Like buds that bloom or leaves that peel open and out, just because things don’t move doesn’t mean they don’t change. There is so much to feel and unfeel by just staying, finding the freedom in remaining absolutely, perfectly, still. 

Maybe that's part of being whole. Stretching in place, knowing when to remain, learning yourself in the quiet. And before you know it, you're the person that you always were and not at all what you expected.