Wow, has 2025 been quite the year. Of the 264 days that have passed, I have spent a grand total of 128 on the road. That means nearly half my nights this year have been spent on borrowed pillows, tucked in sheets still warm from strangers’ dreams.

In between, I’ve gathered moments that feel like treasures I keep in my pocket. Doing ski shots at the tailgate of an NFL playoff game. Dancing to Bad Bunny in Puerto Rico, lost in a sea of pava hats. Ad libbing vocals with a live band, newly formed, in the basement of a Bushwick pizza shop.

I am never alone, but somehow always in solitude.

This year on all accounts has been a good one. I just visited Brazil, making it the 48th country I've stepped foot into. The Chargers are off to a 3–0 start for the first time since 2002 (!!). My Duolingo streak has stretched to 600 days, and my Spanish is getting just about good enough to carry a five minute long conversation with Miami Uber drivers.

Back home, my parents are in their seventies, still healthy and traveling through their own retirement. My nephews, seven and five, stumble bravely through school despite their challenges. And my dog, Guinness, just a couple of months shy from 14, still greets me with a wagging tail and love that asks for nothing in return.

Work, too, has been a whirlwind, in all the best ways. I spend my days with brilliant people working on problems that feel world-changing. I speak on public stages, teach workshops, and sign copies of my book for long lines of strangers eager to meet me. Gratitude overwhelms me. I don’t have to live this life, and yet each day I get to.

Yet, all of this comes at a cost. The tradeoff has been real. I have left behind a tight-knit support system, a cultural identity I have blurred to fit in, and the quiet steadiness of politics untouched by hate or polarization – something that so many take for granted. Still, it feels worthwhile. Not for the accolades, but for the horizons widened; the world made to feel just a little bigger each time.

I am happy. And yet, I often find myself in moments where I feel overwhelmingly sad. There was none more perplexing than after the Chargers beat the Chiefs in their opening game of the season a couple of weeks ago. I had been waiting six whole months for this moment. Every fan does. We convince ourselves that this season will be different, that this year is our year, and that this time the hope might actually hold. And on that night, pulling off the win as the clear underdogs, I should have been bolting the fuck up, and getting the zoomies up and down my apartment. 

Instead, I lay on my couch, head heavy from having just weathered a 48 hour cross-country trip. For good measure, I fired off a few messages to r/Chargers on Reddit and to the Bracky group chat in Farcaster. I have to show excitement, I thought. Yet, the entire time, all I could think about was how incredibly sad I felt.

Is it really sadness? Or is it loneliness? Or is it just everything, everywhere all at once?

This has been a year of contradictions. Happy, but lonely. Grateful, but sad. Excited, but anxious. Liberated, yet stuck. Heart wide open, yet still deeply guarded. Maybe this is the cost of living fully: that you must be stretched to your limits to hold it all at once.

Another big contradiction: I feel everything, and yet sometimes absolutely nothing at all. Maybe that’s why I have been indulging in a few more vices recently, more so than I should.

The most harmless is Sichuan food, piled high with deceptively innocent-looking peppercorns. The more mouth-numbing and tear-inducing, the better; gastrointestinal consequences be damned. Then there are those late nights at the casino: hundreds of dollars turned into chips just to feel the chase of the high, but equally so the tilt of a loss.

I've always enjoyed alcohol, but these days, my consumption is ironically measured. Two drinks, no more, just enough to loosen the mind without clouding tomorrow. And most recently, nicotine pouches: discreet, controlled, a way to flirt with headiness, to test the body without leaving a mark.

And still, every day, I rise. I go to the gym. I still deadlift and squat more than my own weight, easily. I even surprised myself by running a sub-nine-minute mile in a 3.5 mile race on no training and four hours of sleep. I still tend to Guinness with the uncompromising devotion of a mother. I spend hours disappearing into my screen, stitching together case studies, sketching strategies, and balancing budgets with uncommon clarity.

In some ways, I feel like I am living dangerously — teetering on the edge of abandon, yet executing with surgical precision.

Maybe I should give myself more grace. In three weeks, I’ll uproot my life for the third time in four years. This time though, there is no partner waiting, no one to split boxes with. Just me, alone with the weight of it all; wrestling with logistics, untangling loose ends, and stepping into messy beginnings.

Part of me marvels at my capacity for adulting these days. I get some things right, like paying my bills on time. But when you come from a country where everything just works, navigating the “bigger” stuff like health insurance, taxes, and medical appointments feels nothing short of daunting. I’ve lived in America for more than four years and still don’t have a primary care physician. I’m not even sure what they do. The last time I tried to see one, they told me the next opening was in a week. I figured I wouldn’t still be sick by then, so I just gave up.

And right now, I’m defiantly choosing not to sell my car, against all logic — simply because I can’t bring myself to Google how.

The year is soon coming to a close. And with it, the inevitable question: who do I spend the holidays with? Do I spend Thanksgiving alone in an apartment I haven’t found yet? Do I go off-grid on some kind of ayahuasca retreat in a wanton bid to find myself? Do I throw a dart at a map and chase country number fifty before the year is out?

And what about Christmas? Do I buy a tree and decorate it with the ornaments I’ve carried from place to place — glass and porcelain remnants of a life that no longer fits, but still lingers?

I could always fly home. But the idea of a 24-hour journey only to sit across from family and field questions I don’t know how to answer — about love, about timelines, about life decisions — feels heavier than just staying put.

The thing is, I don’t want to have to explain myself. I consider myself a storyteller, but my life isn’t one with a clean narrative. Most days, I show up with a smile. I send memes. I laugh in social settings. I ask how people are doing, and actually mean it. I am present. I am high-functioning. I am good.

But I am also sad. Not always. But often.

And I don’t always know why. It’s not quite loneliness. Not exactly regret. It’s just… a quiet ache I carry. A weight I’ve learned to walk with.

Till then, it’s just me, my Zyn, and a dirty martini at yet another airport. Watching people reunite. Watching the gate fill with the buzz of return, or the heady anticipation of going somewhere new.

I may be alone, yes. But there is no question that I am alive. Deeply.

Maybe just slightly Lost in the thrill of it all, as Frank Ocean sings. But somehow still exactly where I’m meant to be.

Happy. Sad. Grateful. Anxious.

But ultimately, good. Really. And enjoying every minute of it.