just give me like a year to figure out my life

welcome to my quarter life crisis

December 31st, 2023

I'm lounging on my friend's couch, east of London, watching Eat Pray Love, stuffing myself with leftover chocolate Santas, and washing it down with red wine. I usually don’t even like red wine, but I do enjoy the ambiance of sitting under a heated blanket with two cats on top of me, a chocolate Santa in my left hand, and a glass of red wine in my right. I mean, try to come up with a better scenario than this! As I watch Julia Roberts wander around India, I wonder where this year will take me. Will I finally have my very own Eat Pray Love happy ending and fall in love with a handsome man who’s just as into traveling as I am, and will we live happily ever after in countries no one in my hometown has ever heard of, with our five ridiculously beautiful children?

January 15th, 2024

I'm stranded at the airport in Doha, Qatar. The flight I'm supposed to take is fully booked, and after queuing for what feels like three hours (though it's probably just one), the staff inform me that they anticipate all future flights to Colombo will be full as well. (Note: I fly standby, a benefit I still get to (ab)use from my time as a flight attendant, which oftentimes isn’t beneficial but simply hell. Today, it’s clearly hell.) I return to my little spot next to a plug, resentful, and lowkey jealous of my daughter because she’s allowed to throw a tantrum, while I really feel like throwing a massive one myself. I wonder what’s worse: the fact that I’ll be spending the night rocking my daughter to sleep and crying on the airport floor, or that I’ve apparently messed up every single decision in my life that led to me rocking my daughter to sleep and crying on the airport floor.

January 16th, 2024

I eventually manage to get on a flight and arrive in Colombo, but apparently, my luggage doesn’t. While desperately waiting for it to show up in a shabby guesthouse near the airport, I try to make the clothes I’ve been wearing for three days straight look like I haven’t been wearing the same clothes for three days straight. I go out and walk around aimlessly, feeling as lost as I am in life right now—a stage I’m pretty sure one could call a quarter-life crisis. I didn’t even want to come to Sri Lanka, which is a privileged and stupid thing to say, but honestly, I just had to go somewhere. That’s what you do when you travel full-time and don’t really have a home—just a bunch of stuff in your parents’, exes’, and friends’ basements. As I approach a roti shop, I see a woman chatting with a monk, surprisingly in German. I decide to join them, feeling lonely in a city where every traveler seems to just pass through on their way to more exciting destinations. The woman is stranded here too because her visa to India didn’t get approved in time, so she had to divert. Now, here we are: a monk from Sri Lanka, a woman from Berlin, my daughter, and me, eating rotis and talking about the world. The meeting feels surreal, yet destined—a woman from Germany, forced to divert to Sri Lanka on her way to an ashram in India; a monk who happens to speak German because his biggest dream is to live in Germany one day; and me, also from Germany, who had initially played with the idea of going to an ashram in India. The monk invites us to his friend’s place for dinner, and we try to come up with a plan to help him move to Germany. The next day, I have to block him because he won’t stop video calling and texting me to propose traveling around Sri Lanka with me.

February 1st, 2024

The heaviness of my luggage hurts my back, and the weight of my indecisiveness weighs on my mind. I can't stand staying in this country for another day—I've had enough. Of course, Sri Lanka isn’t the problem here; the problem is me, not being able to face my problems and avoiding taking ownership of my life. I’m the only tourist walking around this village somewhere in the middle of Sri Lanka, so people naturally stare in awe at how I manage to carry two backpacks and a toddler. Honestly, I’m surprised myself that my body is still functioning and hasn’t decided to simply shut down at this point. I just want someone to take me to the airport as soon as possible; I don’t even care about the price anymore. A man approaches me, offering to call his brother, who supposedly has a car, but his brother doesn’t pick up. I know doing this journey by tuk-tuk is basically impossible, but there’s no other option. So, I decide to throw money at the problem and pay this stranger $100 to take me across Sri Lanka to the airport. My back hurts like hell from the hard seats, and my lungs burn from inhaling the exhaust from trucks passing us on the road, but eventually, we make it to the airport.

March 12th, 2024

A few days in Kuala Lumpur, mostly spent in my hotel room ordering Subway egg mayo sandwiches, and a month in Vietnam, mostly spent drinking coconut coffee and being upset that it’s colder than I anticipated, later, I make it to Bali—a place I know and love, and one of the few that, after all this traveling, has slowly but surely started to feel like home. Now, I’m hunched over the toilet, throwing up like I just came back from a wild night at a club—except I didn’t. I simply had a meal in Bali, and apparently, that’s enough for my stomach to literally lose its shit. Thanks to the thin walls, my neighbor hears me and asks if I want some of her charcoal tablets. Yes, girl, give me all of them.

April 16th, 2024

I sit in the car with my friend from London as she drives me to the airport. She asks me what I’m going to do with my life now. I tell her I have no idea. Maybe move back to Spain, open a cute café, and teach yoga? Maybe move to New York and finally become super famous? Or perhaps head back to Southeast Asia and visit the few countries I haven’t been to yet? Honestly, I don’t know, and at this point, the excitement of my free-spirited life is slowly turning into pure anxiety.

May 2nd, 2024

I’m drowning my nachos in cheese sauce at a sports bar in Valencia when a message pops up on my phone. It’s my future roommate telling me she reserved the room in Brooklyn for me. I start screaming, crying, and freaking out. My childhood dream of moving to New York is becoming real. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. I’m so damn sure that this is what I need right now—a change of scenery from hanging out with backpackers to hanging out with cool people from New York, because in my imagination, everyone living in New York is so cool and accomplished. The next time you see my face, it’ll be on a building in Times Square, bitch.

May 31st, 2024

"Ugh, I fucking hate this city," I complain to one of my best friends I met up with in New York. "Why is everything so hectic and unaffordable? $8 for a coffee—that should be a crime?? Why is everyone so rude? Why does everyone here seem to hate kids? Why does everyone here seem to hate everyone and everything?" Part of me wants to stay—not only to hold onto my dream of making it in New York but also because of this guy I met who has golden retriever husband energy but is, tragically, not quite over his ex. He messages me to ask when he can see me again, but I’m already on the plane back to Spain.

June 7th, 2024

Nothing has made sense since the year started, and now I’m just watching my life fall apart by the minute. It’s my own fault because I have no idea what I really want. "I’m just so tired of it all," I tell my friend in Valencia as she helps me search for long-term rentals. Moving back to Spain is honestly the last thing I want to do right now. However, I can’t trust myself anymore because, so far, my decisions have either led to tropical illnesses or left me broke. Maybe this is a wise choice—kind of miserable to return to the city where my daughter’s dad lived a double life throughout our entire relationship, but at least it’s safe and predictable. Maybe the good days are over, and isn’t that what most people do anyway? Settling for mediocrity, I mean.