At 36, a former flight attendant finds peace in a slower life

She grew up in a small Ukrainian town believing she would need to work harder than people from big cities to succeed. In her early 20s, she moved to Kyiv, where she felt pressure to keep up appearances through an active social life, expensive fitness memberships and the right places to eat.

After college, she became a flight attendant for Ukraine’s national carrier. Impostor syndrome drove her to work harder: she improved her English, began learning Spanish and took on a punishing summer schedule. For years, she lived out of a suitcase, coping with time-zone changes and early starts while treating exhaustion as evidence of her worth. She says she recognized the signs of burnout but felt too overwhelmed to stop.

After her son was born, the pandemic grounded aviation. Then war broke out in Ukraine, forcing her family to leave. They settled in a small Ontario town, where the quiet initially frightened her. Soon after arriving, she had her first panic attack. The stillness made her confront how little time she had spent simply being with herself, she writes.

In fall 2022, she took a part-time receptionist job, where she works with three colleagues. She now favors home workouts and yoga, and finds comfort in baking, making sauerkraut and learning French for pleasure rather than career advancement. At 36, she says, she no longer wants to live in “panic mode.” Letting go of old ambitions and habits, she writes, has helped her be more present in her marriage and build closer ties within her community.