Going into my last year of college, I thought I had life figured out. The resume, the job offer, the friends. I was as "successful" as you could be at 22. Then something cracked open. I wrote in my journal: "Why? Am I not enough?" That question changed everything.
I left Wall Street. I actualized a childhood dream of starting a YouTube channel. I solo-traveled. I sat in silence on cushions and in places I couldn't pronounce, with people whose language I didn't speak. I was looking for something I couldn't name. As much as I thought I'd find it out there, I didn't. But something fell away when I stopped looking. I moved to San Francisco in 2025, and for the first time in a long time, I experienced genuine belonging. Not from anything grand. From living life with people I love rather than catching up with them every couple of weeks.
When I talk with friends about what we miss most from college, it's never the classes or the freedom. It's how easy it was to be with each other. Pop into someone's unlocked dorm room. Meet at the dining hall on a whim. Just being together, minus the calendar juggling.
I believe you can have that again as an adult. There's nothing immature about wanting it. Life is just better when we're in community.
Everything I care about comes back to friendship. With other people, and with myself.
These days, I build things that support people in connecting with themselves and each other. I write about what's alive in me. I sit with people in the places they usually face alone. I vibe code while listening to Fred Again.
I'm learning little by little, again and again, that I don't have to have it figured out. And that it's okay that I never will. That all I can really do is live the questions now.