It’s been a year since I ran a marathon on Antarctic ice; the first of seven during the Great World Race. What a day. What an experience.
What always sticks with me, when we think back to big and small, iconic or ordinary moments in time, is how much a day, a week, one simple decision, can change everything.
Nothing happened that day in Wolf’s Fang, technically. I crossed the finish line as Anne. Flew back to Cape Town as Anne. No dramatic shedding of old skin, no Hollywood moment where I finally found myself. I didn’t leave my baggage on the ice. I didn’t fall in love. I didn’t fall out of pain.
And yet…
And yet my Universe rearranged itself that day, that week of existing in between—between continents, between exhaustion and euphoria, between who I was and who I was becoming. Tectonic plates shifted beneath everything I thought was solid.
Maybe it started there, somewhere between step one and mile 26. Maybe it started the day before at the race briefing, surrounded by other people insane enough to attempt this race. Or maybe it really started in May when I decided that yes, I was in, I was doing this wild adventure.
Whenever that moment was, it split my path in two.
These tiny moments—there are so many in daily life—we don’t see them, we don’t even feel them, but they’re there. Only in retrospect can we appreciate the monumental earthquake that led to tectonic plates forming a whole new reality. There’s magic in it. There’s the unending awe of infinite possibilities.
Every day, every moment can transform your life in ways you couldn’t even imagine.
Of course, you have to say yes. You have to listen to the nudges, the whispers, the crazy ideas that won’t leave you alone. Life doesn’t happen to us—it happens for us, but only when we show up. Only when we knock on the doors. Only when we take the action even when we don’t understand why. That yes in May? I didn’t know what I was saying yes to. I just knew I had to move.
Every day contains these invisible hinges. These moments where everything shifts while you’re just living your regular Friday. You’re making coffee, answering emails, saying yes to something that seems small—and life unknowingly bends itself around that yes.
A year ago, I thought I was going to live in the States at this point. I thought I’d still lead the company I had worked my way up in for so many years. I thought I knew where I wanted to go. Hell, I thought I’d run the race again this year.
Today? Still in Germany. No longer running anything but my own life. No professional path I can name. And somehow—somehow—I’ve never felt more solid. Doors exist where walls used to be. I found happiness I couldn’t hold before. The insecurity is real, yes, but I am present in my own life in ways I didn’t know were possible.
Life is fucking magical. Life is fucking incredible.
And I am so grateful—finally, honestly, in my bones—that I get to be alive.