Congratulations to Karina Karabina for Winning the March 2026 Barefoot Writing Challenge! (Your $100 prize is on its way!)
The challenge was to write an essay that answered this prompt:
Have you ever gone through a period of self-reinvention? Describe the transition and share what you learned on the other side.
Karina shared a touching account of a life-altering transition that led to unexpected outcomes. Enjoy her winning submission:
Becoming
by Karina Karabina
When you self-reinvent, it needs to first happen in your mind before it applies to your work or anywhere else.
I can’t count how many times I have gone through self-reinvention, but the first major one was in 1999, catapulted by a tragic event — the death of my best friend in Denmark, who died by her own hand.
Those of us who loved her had a major breakdown. We were all hit with an immense feeling of guilt. What could we have done differently? Why didn’t we see the signs? But when people choose to take their own lives, it is not anyone else’s fault. It is a deliberate decision. Nonetheless, it forced all of us to take a close look at our own lives: Are we happy? Is this the way we want to be? Where are we heading?
Before I left Denmark, I did something I had never done before — I wrote. I poured all those gigantic emotions onto paper. A short book dedicated to her, part manifesto, part love letter — a testament to my love for her and for life itself. It was the first time I discovered how powerful, healing, and magical writing truly is — turning grief into something meaningful. The seed of a writer was planted in the most painful of soils.
I headed to Italy, where the other half of my heritage is from, with an overwhelming urge to live, to be happy and positive. A lust for life like never before, owing it to my friend. I settled in Calabria, working on a beach and campsite as a masseuse — healing people with my hands, and slowly, quietly, healing myself in the process. The angry punk rock and death metal got swapped for Buena Vista Social Club and Manu Chao. Color crept into my wardrobe, not just plain black. I stopped taking dead-end jobs and started planning ahead.
For the next many years, I traveled Europe, working as a bartender, rickshaw rider, nightclub bouncer, and gardener. Then in 2013, Southeast Asia called — four months in Thailand and Malaysia that quickly turned from an outward journey into an inward one. I returned to London, having shed toxic relationships, moved to a new area, and built an entirely fresh, positive circle. Another deliberate reinvention.
In 2016, a badly dislocated shoulder brought the physical work to a halt. Frustrated and restless, I enrolled at The Open University, studying creative writing, English literature, and Spanish. Writing gave me a voice again — a way to make sense of everything I had lived through. It felt less like a new career and more like coming home.
Every reinvention — whether forced by grief, circumstance, or a dislocated shoulder — taught me the same thing: Life is not something that happens to you; it is something you actively choose. Reinvention is not instability. It is simply proof that you are paying attention. The same person, repeatedly choosing to grow. And that is not something to fear. It is something to embrace.
