Second life

I left Oakland a year ago for Asia. I was nervous before I took off. Although that’s not true. That’s something it seems like I should say, but I wasn’t nervous.

I was so excited to get out of Oakland. The shooting and police helicopters and human shit on the sidewalk. Running a business that got robbed at least once a month. Drinking constantly. Living a life I didn’t enjoy very much anymore. It wasn’t a bad life. There were really good things about it, but it just wasn’t for me anymore.

Heading back to America in three days. November of last year I landed in Taipei. Since then I’ve spent six months in Vietnam learning how to ride motorbikes. I turned myself from a foraging chef into an AI developer. I grew in ways I’m really proud of. I discovered ways to be comfortable in the world and just generally became more myself.

There was some tearing away when I left. Tearing away from a business I didn’t want to run anymore. That did cause issues in relationships I’d had for years and definitely valued. But we only have this one life. At least this time around.

It almost feels like I have a second life. I had one in San Francisco, with a career and businesses and relationships and friends, which I really loved in a lot of ways and don’t regret for a minute. And now that person is gone and there’s a new person. He feels differently and acts differently and values different things, lives in different places, does different things for work. Has different conversations, has different relationships. Loves to ride motorbikes. I really can’t imagine going back to that other person. It just wouldn’t be right.

Carl Jung: “Life begins at 40. Everything else is just practice.” It really does feel like that. Like I had this whole life of practice. I learned about relationships, gained confidence in my ideas, had some success, learned what it felt like to have a home and people who cared about me and were paying attention to me. And now I’m taking all that practice and living the life built on top of all that.

I have never been even close to this engaged in my work as I am now. I feel like finally my full brain is being used to create. It’s not always easy (and in some ways that’s the point), but SO satisfying to do something that pushes the edges of my capacity.

If you’re reading this I hope you have the chance I’ve had. I hope everyone does, but I know they don’t. Some can’t, some don’t let themselves. To have the freedom to grow in the direction that is right for you, without holding yourself back because other people might get upset. A chance to know yourself, what you like, what inspires you, what excites you, and to see just how big the world really is.

I’m excited to go back to the US to see people I care about, but if I’m being honest I’m a little scared. Scared that for some reason I’ll lose the person I am now and become the one I was. That this was all a dream and I’ll wake up. But we take it all with us. The experiences we have and people we’ve met all become part of the story we bring to the next place. There’s no arriving, just stopping along the way.