It has been WAY too long since I’ve last taken time to write – almost a year! – which means it’s been WAY too long since I’ve had some good time to reflect.

In this time, life has absolutely sped by. In the blink of an eye, I have lived in Taipei for almost 2.5 years; inhabited two apartments, worked on seven projects and a rotation, forgone way too much sleep, eaten at way, way, way too many restaurants. I’ve made zero progress on my book, volunteered irregularly with more elephants and more children, started and stopped working out, went on a handful of pretty lame dates. I’ve grown closer to some friends and distant from others, still deciphering what “community” means in a world that didn’t exist to me two years ago. I’ve revenge-travelled with an insatiable vengeance, reclaiming the life I’d first imagined when I decided to move back to Asia in 2019, reuniting with family and friends across the globe as if I/we could make up for lost time.

All that to say – after 2.5 years, yes, I do feel settled; yes, Taipei feels like home, yes, I want to stay even longer (most days, at least – I’m already halfway to permanent residency!). On paper, my life is actually stunningly close to the one I imagined when I was 18, as evidenced by the senior issue of our high school newspaper under the “Travel 20 years into the Future” section:

Details aside (high-tech, China, and “important business meeting” range from questionable to wrong), I did it! – I built my life into the one I envisioned…and yet.

Recently, I’ve been wondering why it just doesn’t feel enough (or “K”enough, for those of you who, like me, watched “Barbie”). I’m completely unsure of what more I’m looking for: sure, a husband and kids would be great, as would becoming a “laoban,” or making it big somehow – money, fame, whatever. All these are of course welcome, but I’m no longer convinced that these are the ultimate unlocks to happiness. In fact, I see them as nice-to-haves of life that might make me happier but also come with fairly significant costs. My guess is also that even with these – even with ALL of these – my greedy self will be sitting here in the same (figurative) spot 20 years later, wondering: “What else is there?”

People tell me all the time that I have a good life; they are wrong – I have a fantastic life. So it’s astonishing to me that even knowing that, I’m still wondering whether this is it, looking for my life “next steps,” allowing my unquenchable thirst for god-knows-what to get in the way of being done, feeling complete, having enough.

This April, I returned to Shanghai for the first time in years, marveling at the streets that were exactly the same and completely different. There, I felt it: the city that had completely changed my life trajectory. I realized, being back, that if I had never moved to Shanghai in 2014, I would never even have considered living in Asia as an adult; I would far more likely have followed the typical post-Penn path from New York to SF to some American suburb with a picket-fence house, the natural trajectory of an immigrant family’s American Dream. If it wasn’t for that year, I would never be in Taipei now, trading decades of acclimating to Western culture for ironically reverting back to an Eastern one – a modern, adult(ish) and distinctively Taiwanese version of the first cultures I’d ever known.

The juxtaposition was jarring. I could feel it as I walked around the French Concession again: I was 24 in Shanghai, and the world was my oyster; I was young and in love with the city, my boyfriend, my life; curious about everything and fascinated by anything. Even back then, the hedonism bored me after a while, but there were clear potential next steps: after all, I was only on my first job and the youngest among all my friends; I could build my career or get an MBA or get married or all of the above…it was just the start. The more I wandered around, though, the more I realized: Shanghai being Shanghai, so much more was different than was the same. And in a snap, my mind was back to today, an older, more adult me – the world is my oyster again here in Taipei, but only kind of; I am still young, but only kind of; just like Shanghai, so much more about me is different than is the same. Just like then, I’m getting bored of the hedonism, but unlike then, I’m a little more jaded, a lot less optimistic, and surprisingly unsure of why it doesn’t feel “enough.”

Cliche as it sounds, I thought I’d have it figured out by now. I’m surprised at how stumped I still feel. I’m confused if it doesn’t feel “enough” because I haven’t made it there yet, or because there IS no “enough,” ever, and that this is exacerbated by how spoiled I am for choice and opportunity. It’s the type of thing I imagine gratitude journaling is supposed to combat, but perhaps this confusion and gratitude are not mutually exclusive. I am acutely grateful for my life today, and at times very proud of myself, and therefore more confused than ever about what more I could possibly want. That’s all – there’s no grand conclusion for this post, just this strange feeling of confusion, but mixed with gratitude, and tinged with the little bit of optimism that lives within me somewhere!