The road so far
Measured from where I actually started, I am ahead.
Not a résumé. Just the arcs, and what each one took and left behind. Every U-turn planted something I am still living on.
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Where I started
Nepal, before any of it
- Cost
- Nothing was handed over, and other people's needs kept arriving before my own.
- Gave
- A spine. Whatever I have been able to carry since, I learned to carry there.
-
The years away
the country that trained me
- Cost
- Distance, and a long stretch of being the one who was not there.
- Gave
- An engineer. The skill I still eat on, and the proof that I can start over among strangers.
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Going back
the U-turn everyone had an opinion about
- Cost
- To anyone keeping score from the outside, it read as a step backwards.
- Gave
- Aojaswi and Yuvaan. The two reasons the ledger already balances.
-
Starting again
third country, on a visa, with a toddler
- Cost
- No network, no safety net, and every certainty rebuilt from scratch.
- Gave
- A life my family is safe inside — housed, fed, loved. Built faster than it looks from in here.
-
This season
the heavy one
- Cost
- Sole income, and a fear that shows up at 2am doing arithmetic.
- Gave
- Unwritten. This is the chapter I am still holding the pen on.
Anyone comparing themselves to me is standing at a different starting line. So am I, when I compare back.