Winter in the Midwest has a particular kind of cruelty (-19C today).
It isn’t just the cold — it’s the stillness that comes with it.

Right now, the sun is out. The sky is blue. By all external measures, it’s a “nice” day. And yet something in me feels restless in a way I can’t quite explain. For the first time in a while, I’ve been wondering if I might be running from something.

Not running from grief exactly.
Not running from pain in the obvious way.

But maybe running from memory.

After you lose someone, the world doesn’t just keep going — it becomes saturated. Every coffee shop, every street, every season quietly fills up with ghosts of who you used to be. Not sad ghosts. Just unfinished ones. There are places where Sunn never went. Places we talked about. Places that still feel like they’re waiting for a version of us that no longer exists.

At some point your nervous system starts to whisper, I need a different horizon for a while.

That’s where the guilt creeps in.

Should I really be doing this again?
Shouldn’t I be “home” by now?
Shouldn’t I be settled?

We’re taught that healing looks like staying put — planting roots, proving to the world that we’re okay. But no one really talks about what happens when staying starts to hurt more than leaving. Not because you’re broken — but because you’ve outgrown the emotional shape of the place you’re in.

There’s a difference between running away and needing new light.

Running away is trying to erase something.
Needing new light is letting yourself breathe again.

Lately I’ve been going back and forth between two very different ideas.

Part of me wants to return to Bangkok — a city I love, a place that feels like an old friend. It’s familiar, alive, social. A place where I know exactly how to be myself. But it also carries history. Versions of me that existed in a different chapter. People I once loved. Memories that still hum under the surface.

Another part of me wants something quieter and newer — an “ancient town tour” through Yunnan in southern China. Starting in Dali (visited July 2025), which I loved, then drifting through places like Shaxi and Lijiang (totally new places for me). Old stone streets, café mornings, mountain light, and a kind of gentle liveliness that feels happy without being loud. They’re tourist towns for Chinese, but still mostly off the global radar — places where you can feel curious without being claimed.

I don’t know which one I’ll choose yet. And maybe that’s the point. I’m not looking for the perfect destination. I’m listening for which version of myself wants to show up.

There are other places in the orbit too.
Seoul, which I always seem to pass through but never stay in.
Tokyo, which I’m slowly warming up to in a way I didn’t expect.

Both are tempting — but they’re still cold this time of year, and right now what I want more than anything is warmth. Probably in more ways than one.

I’ve even thought about something as simple as Mexico — sun, ocean, easy days — but the reality is that a few nights at a decent resort there can cost more than three weeks in Asia. At this stage of life, value matters. Not because I’m cheap — but because freedom feels better when it’s sustainable.

The truth is, underneath all of this, there’s something simpler and harder to admit.

I don’t just want a new place.
I want to feel someone next to me again.

Not just novelty.

A presence.
An embrace.
A quiet kind of closeness.

After loss, after years of being strong and independent and interesting, there comes a moment when the body just says: I don’t want to be impressive. I want to be held!

That’s not weakness.
That’s being alive.

So yes, I’m thinking about going again.

Not because I’m lost.
Not because I’m avoiding my life.

But because staying still, surrounded by too many old versions of myself, no longer feels honest.

I’m not trying to outrun what I’ve been through.

I’m just giving myself a little more sky to breathe under.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what healing looks like.

Cheers! Photo was in Bangkok, a city that somehow does feel like home…