27. May 2026

Traveling New Roads Toward New Life

There is something uncomfortable about taking a road you have never taken before.

Even when you know you need change, it can still feel easier to stay with what is familiar. Familiar places, familiar patterns, familiar versions of ourselves. Even when they no longer fit, they can feel safer than stepping into something unknown.

But new roads are often where new life begins.

For me, this is not just an idea. It is part of my story.

I come from Amish roots, from a world where life was shaped by tradition, separation, obedience, and expectations that were often too heavy to question. From the outside, people sometimes romanticize that kind of life as simple or peaceful. But my experience was much more complicated. There were beautiful pieces, yes, but there were also parts that felt controlling, fear-based, and deeply limiting. Parts that taught me to stay small. Parts that made it hard to know where the community ended and where I began.

Leaving that kind of environment was not just a change of address or lifestyle. It was a breaking open.

It meant stepping away from what I had always known and learning how to think, choose, believe, and become for myself. It meant facing the grief of what I lost, the confusion of what I had been taught, and the fear that comes with freedom when you were not raised to trust your own voice.

That kind of leaving is not simple.

When you come out of a high-control or cult-like lifestyle, the road forward can feel both wide open and terrifying. There is no map for becoming yourself after years of being told who you were supposed to be. You have to learn ordinary things in a new way. You have to learn your preferences, your boundaries, your desires, your gifts. You have to learn that your life belongs to you.

Sometimes the new road is literal. A different drive, a new town, a place you have never been, a turn you almost did not take. Other times, the road is internal. A new decision. A new boundary. A new way of seeing yourself. A new willingness to believe that life can become different than it has been.

I have been thinking about how much of growth requires movement.

Not always big, dramatic movement. Sometimes it is a small step in a new direction. Trying again after disappointment. Letting yourself want more. Choosing healing instead of survival. Opening yourself to a different way of living, even when the old way still feels easier to understand.

New roads can be uncertain, but they can also be generous. They show us things we could not see from where we were standing before. They bring us into contact with different people, different memories, different possibilities. They remind us that our lives are not as fixed as fear sometimes tells us they are.

Food connects to this in a very human way.

For much of my life, food was tied to work, family, community, duty, and survival. It was practical. It was necessary. It was part of the rhythm of life. But as I have grown and healed, food has become something more personal to me. It has become a way to choose warmth instead of fear. Generosity instead of control. Creativity instead of only obligation.

When we travel, we remember places through what we taste. A bakery we stopped at on a quiet morning. A meal shared after a long drive. Coffee in a town we had never heard of before. Something warm handed across a counter when we were tired, hungry, or far from home.

Food has a way of making unfamiliar places feel a little more welcoming.

It gives us something to gather around when everything else feels new. It helps create memory. It gives the body a sense of comfort while the heart is adjusting to change. Sometimes a simple meal or baked good becomes part of how we remember a season of becoming.

That is part of what I love about food.

It belongs on the road and at the table. It travels with us in lunchboxes, picnic baskets, paper bags, foil-covered pans, and coffee cups. It shows up at beginnings, endings, celebrations, hard conversations, family visits, and quiet mornings when we are trying to find our way.

Food does not make the road easy. But it can make the journey feel less lonely.

It can remind us to pause. To notice where we are. To receive something good in the middle of transition. To mark the moment, even if we do not fully understand what the moment means yet.

I think that is why baking continues to feel connected to my own story.

The Resting Spoon has grown out of more than a love for making food. It has grown out of a desire to create something steady and nourishing while life keeps changing. It is part of my own new road—a road of healing, rebuilding, giving, learning, and becoming.

Every loaf, every roll, every recipe carries a little of that with it.

It is practical work, but it is also meaningful work. It reminds me that new life often starts quietly. It starts in the small choices. The honest work. The willingness to try. The courage to go somewhere unfamiliar and trust that there may be goodness waiting there.

For me, breaking free has not only been about leaving something behind. It has been about finding myself on the other side. It has been about discovering what I love, what I believe, what I can create, and how I want to give. It has been about learning that freedom is not just escape. Freedom is the slow, brave work of building a life that feels true.

We do not always know where a new road will take us.

But sometimes, as we follow it, we find pieces of life we did not know were still possible. New rhythms. New strength. New people. New memories. New ways of being at home in ourselves.

And maybe somewhere along the way, there is bread on the seat beside us, coffee in the cup holder, or something sweet waiting at the end of the drive.

A small reminder that even on unfamiliar roads, we can still be nourished.

We can still be welcomed.

We can still be led into new life.