when i was a kid, i spent a concerning amount of afternoons dragging my navy blue wheeled school bag around our neighborhood in search of a better life.
it usually happened around 3PM on some random summer afternoon while both my parents were still at work. i would pack my shit and run away from home.
the running away was never serious. i wasn’t escaping some terrible home life. i don’t even make it particularly far.
by 5PM, my mom would be walking home from work, spot me somewhere around the neighborhood, and i’d quietly fall into step beside her like i hadn’t just spent the last two hours exploring my options as an orphan.
but for those two hours of homelessness, i’d drag that loudass school bag through the same streets i already knew and pretend i’m starting an entirely new life.
i would choose which type of house i wanted to live in. decide what job i would like to have. figure out how i was going to support myself with no money, no actual skills, and just whatever nonsense i had packed instead of food or common sense. (people say children were better off before phones, but i feel like we need to have a conversation about whatever the hell this was.)
the running away wasn’t a one-time thing, either. i did it regularly. i would leave home, walk around the neighborhood, and build a whole imaginary life before returning in time for dinner.
i never really understood why i kept doing it. i think i really liked the idea that i could begin again somewhere else. that i could leave with one bag, start from nothing, and somehow the fun was in figuring out the rest as i went.
years later, i packed my shit one more time and ran away from home for real.
this time, i had packed for more than an afternoon.
the streets were unfamiliar.
there was no version of the afternoon where i got tired, gave up, and quietly returned home for dinner.
there was no old life waiting three blocks away when the experiment stopped being fun.
and there was absolutely no one coming home at 5PM to find me.
i had moved across the world and placed my entire future on the deeply questionable belief that i would somehow figure it out.
naturally, the next few years became a blur of assignments, exams, part-time work, deadlines, job applications, grocery runs, and approximately 12,872 separate opportunities to wonder whether i should just go back home.
somewhere in the middle of all that, i finished school and graduated with distinction.
then i got into my dream engineering firm.
and then i moved into my dream apartment.
which all sounds suspiciously like a success story when i list it like that.
but at the time they were happening to me, none of those things felt like achievements.
graduating wasn’t “holy shit, i did it.” it was “thank God, okay, now i need to find a job.”
getting the job wasn’t “holy shit, i got in.” it was “thank God. now i need to survive probation.”
even moving into the apartment wasn’t “holy shit, i made it.” it was “thank God. now i need to make rent.”
fear of failure will get a lot of shit done and unfortunately for me, it is extremely bad at acknowledging a job well done.
i spent so many years worrying about whether i was making the right decisions that i never stopped to admire the life i was building. i had been too busy chasing some dream future to notice i was already living it.
so now that things have finally calmed down enough for me to sit here and make a website about it, i keep thinking about that ridiculous runaway kid dragging her little wheeled school bag down the street.
because if anyone deserved the credit, it was her.
a lot of the things i have today used to belong in the exact same category as those imaginary houses and imaginary careers. now they’re just my life.
and that’s kind of incredible.
and before i let her take all the credit, it’s worth mentioning that this life is a collective project. it carries jake’s hard work beside mine, my family’s love from across the world, and the Lord Almighty repeatedly looking at my decisions, sighing heavily, and choosing mercy anyway.
lately, i’ve been realizing that it’s a little ridiculous how many of our dreams quietly come true and barely get acknowledged.
and i’m not just talking about the big ones.
sometimes it’s as simple as being able to order expensive coffee.
or being able to buy cake for our parents’ birthday.
or being able to buy the useless little thing we would’ve been told to put back as a kid.
small things, technically.
but the kind of things we used to pray we’d be able to afford someday.
and somehow, someday is here.
so i guess we have no choice but to be proud of ourselves. (i know. disgusting.)
but that reminds me of that little kid with the wheeled school bag, pretending she was starting a new life.
years later, she actually did.
and somehow, against all available evidence, it worked out pretty well.
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