Giving up is not an option.

Harvesting a bountiful crop from the seeds I've planted.

Cosechamos lo que plantamos. In Portuguese, the language under my skin, the expression is colhemos o que plantamos. We reap what we sow.

It has been a week of finding my bearings since I resigned from my job at Futuro Media to avert more layoffs, a week of taking deep breaths to soothe my anxious heart and plotting strategies — not for a company or team (soon, I hope), but for myself. What’s out there? What’s out there for me?

I picked up my 14-year-old child from sleep-away camp on Sunday and held back from sharing the news with her all day, focusing instead on our reunion and reconnection after three weeks apart. “I have so many things to tell you,” she said when she saw me, and then she threw her arms around me, hugging me a little longer than usual, holding on to me a little more tightly.

If only she knew how much I needed it.

She did have a lot of stories to share and I mostly listened as we rode the 138 miles back home, Hole, Nirvana and Cocteau Twins playing on the car stereo — the soundtrack of my early 20s, her favorite bands these days. I pulled her onto the living room couch as soon as we stepped into our apartment, held her hands in mine and told her about my resignation. It had to be done.

She stared back at me in silence, looking as wide-eyed and scared as when I told her six years ago that her father had terminal cancer.

Me: Você confia em mim, Flora? Do you trust me?

Her: Sim, eu confio em você. Of course she trusts in me.

Me: Then trust that everything will be alright. Because it will.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone these past seven days, calling, texting, emailing and replying to messages I’ve received through social media accounts to create and tighten connections. I’ve heard from friends and friends of friends. I’ve heard from people I’ve known of, but haven’t yet met in person, though I’m working on fixing that. Former colleagues have reached out, including reporters whom I competed against on my days of chasing breaking news stories on the streets of New York. An editor who gave me my first big break at The New York Times told me that she’s known since we worked together — and I’m talking 15 years ago — that I could take on a challenge and run with it.

Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

I stand in gratitude and awe at the beautiful trees and flowers that have sprouted from the seeds I’ve been planting since landing my first journalism job in the United States in 1999, covering a couple of small towns in Western Massachusetts. They’re my village, the network of support I’ve built and one that is here to remind me that I’ll be OK. My next chapter will be more meaningful than the meaningful one that came before it.

I move on, move ahead, keep going. Because the only other option is to give up, and I haven’t come this far to give up.

With love and purpose, always.

Fernanda