chapter 29: solo, but never alone
celebrating a birthday while traveling far away from friends and family
I just turned 26, and spent my birthday out of the country, away from my closest friends and family for the first time in my life.
I’m a big believer in celebrating birthdays joyously, loudly, and unashamedly. Time is our most finite resource, so the marker of another year on this planet deserves to be celebrated and reflected upon with the upmost intention.
Birthdays tend to be the one day out of the year where you get to connect with the highest number of people. The day you were born inspires people to reach out, summarize the depths of your friendship, recall good times, and wish you well, no matter the frequency of your communication during the rest of the year.
And I absolutely love and look forward to that every single year.
Last year, I celebrated my 25th birthday in a BIG way – with 3 parties, in 3 different cities, back-to-back in 3 days. It was my own personal “Eras Tour” (inspired by Taylor Swift, of course) taking me back to the three cities I had called home and built communities in during the past few years.
Through a lot of planning (and too many flights within 48 hours), I managed to celebrate my 25th birthday at a bar in New York City on Friday, at the beach in Los Angeles on Saturday, and at a park in San Francisco on Sunday. Over 100 people I care about all came together in the span of one weekend, despite being located in three different corners of the country. It was truly one of the happiest weekends of my life and reaffirmed how much I value spending time in person with the people I love.
In complete contrast, I’m currently living on the small Caribbean island of Utila, Honduras thousands of miles away from the people I love the most. Although I share an apartment with a friend I met once earlier this year on a different solo trip, I came to Honduras pretty much by myself for a two-month stay, knowing my 26th birthday would be in the middle of it.
I chose this path for myself. I feel I don’t have the right to complain about being alone when I willingly chose to move out of my former home in LA, become fully nomadic, and chart my own course for this year-long sabbatical.
I chose exploring the world and scratching my itch for new experiences of different lifestyles – which, by default, meant choosing to go it alone, and spend significantly less time surrounded by the people back home who love me.
Leading up to my birthday here in Utila, I felt a lot of anxiety and loneliness.
The week before, I had two close friends visit the island and spent my days with them laughing, being silly, and having deep conversations that flowed with the ease and vulnerability found in friends who have known you for at least six years.
As soon as these longterm friends left the island, a wave of sadness hit me as I realized that I would be celebrating my birthday here with people who had known me for six weeks, at best.
The day before I turned 26, I sat at a cafe writing down lengthy reflections about my life, values, and mindset at my current life stage.
I pondered questions of
What am I doing with my life?
Why does it arbitrarily feel so scary to get closer to the age of 30?
Have I already peaked in life and the best days are behind me?
How do I make the most of my time left during this career break?
Amidst the normal mix of Spanish-language music, the song Ribs by Lorde interrupted my rumination. I paused to listen to the lyrics that deeply resonated with me in that exact moment:
🎶 I've never felt more alone, feels so scary getting old 🎶
Loneliness and time anxiety had never previously been invited to my birthday parties, but this year they both pulled up a chair and invited themselves.
I went to sleep that night before my birthday feeling anxious – scared that it was going to feel like just a normal day, nervous to see who would or wouldn’t message me to acknowledge my continued existence, and overall just wishing that when I woke up, someone, anyone would be there to give me a hug and ideally a handwritten card.
Sigh.
I woke up and all of my worries turned out to be for nothing.
My birthday was full of unexpected, heartwarming surprises: my roommate got me a sweet treat to start the day, my close friend who had recently left Honduras told me where to look for a handwritten card he had left hidden in my apartment, my closest friend on the island made me a beautifully drawn homemade card, and best of all: my parents somehow figured out how to source a beautifully decorated cake and get it hand-delivered to me on an island where postal service and official addresses don’t even exist.
Even at the dive center where I’ve spent the past 6 weeks earning my professional scuba divemaster certification, the people feel more like colleagues than close friends – but, everyone made an effort to make my day feel special by singing happy birthday, dancing on the boat on the way to our dives, calling in happy birthday messages over the boat radio channels, and making me blow out the flame of a lighter in lieu of wishing on a birthday candle on the windy boat dock.
I truly wasn’t expecting any of that to happen – normally I am the one who carefully orchestrates and plans out my birthday celebrations, but a day full of surprises and kindness I’ll never forget shocked me in the best way.
And, I can’t understate how much I also valued the countless messages I got from friends around the world who reminded me that even if it might feel lonely at times on my journey, they’re cheering me on and wishing me the best to keep going and enjoy all the ups and downs along the way.
Even when my travel-centric life sometimes feels like a self-inflicted struggle, countless people have reminded me that they view me and the way I live my life as inspiration – and that is a humbling thought to keep front and center in my mind whenever I doubt myself and my path.
I spend an extraordinary amount of time thinking about my friends in other places, putting in the effort to pack my schedule with back-to-back catch up coffees and meals whenever I’m re-visiting my former homes, and try to never go too long without stopping in familiar places for some in-person facetime even in the midst of a hectic personal travel schedule.
And, I’ve happily spent so much time and effort over the past two years organizing over a dozen group trips, bringing together people from many different corners of my life to share bucket list experiences with me and go from being in a group of strangers to being in a group that feels like old friends after exploring a new part of the world together.
In life, you get out what you put in – and putting so much care into community-building and maintaining long-distance friendships in my adult life has really helped me feel like I’ve gotten back that love tenfold, especially in times like these where I felt I needed it most.
In the aftermath of an unexpectedly incredibly memorable birthday full of love from near and far, the warm and fuzzy feelings I have right now are proof of the paradoxical truth: even when you’re traveling solo, you’re never truly alone.
ps – I did a little rebrand thanks to some help from my artsy friends (hit up Leah for any of your digital illustration needs!) and am SO happy with how my new logo and wordmark turned out! I aim for my writing to be whimsical and personable, which I think this new font expresses, and the stamp-inspired logo with a paper airplane is such perfect imagery for both writing and travel.
I hope you love it too! 💙
my goal is to inspire you to travel more as a tool for personal development – and, to live life in a way that feels right to you.
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Lovely post! Happy belated birthday. And you've assuaged some of my own anxieties about my upcoming birthday-while-on-sabbatical. Thank you!
Happy Birthday! What a lovely cake. In times of anxiety and getting older I love to remind myself and others “the best is yet to come!!”