Entry #5

I went to New York twice over. Once alone, once together.

“Christa, you don’t take advice.” 

He said it the way people say things that aren’t meant to be disagreed with, slowly, deliberately, his voice carrying that merciful calm people have when they’re about to tell you something true. Though heavier than air, it was strangely grounding to me.

Mr. Collins had always existed in that peculiar in-between of eccentricity and quiet wisdom. He’s my old neighbor in San Mateo, a retired investment banker from Australia. Part philosopher, part small-town seer. An unassuming prophet in jorts and New Balance sneakers. Each morning, he’d perch on his porch with newspaper folded on his lap, muttering small revolutions between sips of black coffee. I used to love seeing him like that as I rushed to my first period class at seventeen, feeling the morning tilt slightly more interesting just for having glimpsed him.

Now, I was sitting on his porch again, four years after we’d sold the house. The wooden steps had faded to the color of sea salt, yet the neighborhood itself hadn’t changed much, except, perhaps, for the people moving through it.

“You don’t take advice from people who have never left their comfort zones,” he continued. “They can only teach you how to stay small. I only ever pay attention to people and the parts of me that inspire my curiosity and won’t let me rest.” He leaned forward with elbows balanced on his knees. “And you, Christa… don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re kind of the same. You don’t really take advice either.” 

His grin was sweet, reassuring. “But since you take mine, I’ll count that as a win.”

I laughed through an exhale. “That’s true,” I admitted. “I used to think taking advice was the same thing as being safe. Turns out, it was just me trying not to disappoint anyone.”

The air shifted then in a small, perceptible way. But the stale air of hesitation flushed out a tension I hadn’t even realized I carried, and when I finally stood, the sun had already gone golden, catching in the lemon leaves like something divine. 

I said my goodbye to Mr. Collins and walked towards my car. For the rest of the drive, his words replayed in my mind more often than I’d like to admit. He was right, of course. I rarely take advice, not because I believe I know better, but because advice often feels like someone else’s map to a place I never wanted to go. Perhaps that is why I’ve always trusted my own ambition instead. It doesn’t question my motives but just asks, how far can you go on your own? 

* * *

The weight of wanting more had always been my most constant and guilty companion. Ambition, it seemed, was admired in public but privately shamed as greed. I imagined it as a sin in small doses, a crime against gratitude. People praise striving but rarely speak of the guilt it leaves: the restless stirrings that whisper you could be doing more, being more, becoming more.

Yet there’s a strange shame in stagnancy, too, even when you are exactly where you need to be. One voice urges you to reach higher and do more. Another whispers to stay present and be content. And caught between them, you can feel restless for standing still and ungrateful for moving forward. To feel greed and fear in the same heartbeat is… it’s an exquisite irony. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about that duality while I drive, and I’ve started to wonder if maybe I’ve been running in circles.

* * *

I am twenty-three now, and I told Mr. Collins I moved again this year. He smiled, that knowing smile of his. “You’re still following the itch,” he said. I nodded, though unsure which itch he meant. 

I had always imagined my life abroad as a steady climb arranged in a neat sequence of cause and effect. But there were pauses. Collapses. Months that felt both ordinary and monumental. Over the last two years, when I moved from Oakland to Millbrae, then to Santa Clara, I thought of it as a progressing ladder toward some vaguely defined success. I imagined myself climbing steadily with a rhythm that promised growth and fulfillment, yet the months in this quiet, affluent Bay Area suburb made me realize how deceptive comfort can be. It is safe and comfortable, a sensation I hadn’t known in Oakland where the streets had always carried a restless edge. But amid the manicured lawns and tidy porches, an urge for more thrummed beneath my bones. Peace was what I always thought I wanted, yet sometimes, comfort feels sedative, like a velvet trap. I felt stagnant.

I’d drive around at dusk just to feel like I was heading somewhere and think of what Mr. Collins said about comfort zones. I’d wondered what mine looked like now in this neighborhood of perfect lawns and faint asphalt, and then, one phrase would loop in my head: “When someone falls in love with your flowers and not your roots, they don’t know what to do when winter comes.”

Maybe that’s what happened to me. People have loved me for the wrong reasons, and I, myself, have loved myself conditionally in the same shallow ways I feared others would. For years, I mistook achievement for love. I thought that if I could collect enough golden stars by grades, jobs, sacrifices, apologies accepted, people impressed, then maybe I’d finally deserve to rest. I loved myself only in reward cycles and when I failed, I starved her. I called it self-discipline, accountability, being hard on myself. But it was closer to cruelty disguised as structure.

And the truth is, I’d been running laps inside the same fence I swore I’d never let anyone else build around me.

That night, I remember making tea I wouldn’t finish and leaving the kettle to cool on the counter. The house was so still it felt staged. And then, almost recklessly, I booked a flight to New York. It wasn’t planned and I didn’t even think it through. The thought arrived me like a dare: What if I just left? So I did.

* * *

Part 1 - Solo Travel

The first trip belonged entirely to myself. Feral. Unaccompanied. Warm bread torn from baskets and wine poured into the same glass two nights running. I read on fire escapes until the pages blurred and the city below came alive in neon veins. Late trains, waits by the East River, wind soft against my face, my hair a flag of reckless motion… I dressed how I’d always wanted in a black sundress and boots. Maison Margiela, magnetic and unpolished. I was porous, alert, and exhilarated.

To walk and dream these lives was to fall back in love with my own, I said to myself on my first two nights there. But I hadn’t come here only for that. The rest of my stay demanded a kind of discipline and scrutiny entirely different from any solo trips I’d had before. It’s filled with steel in posture and words rehearsed under my breath so many times until my throat ran dry. From the outside, I was constantly on the move and it might have looked enviable. But I, in heels and blazer, was clutching files of articles and pictures tightly to my chest, standing before NYT editors whose eyes cut like scalpels. I could tell they were dissecting me before I even spoke, so I stilled, trying to appear older, sharper, and more certain, because what sucks more than the credibility of your words taken away just for how you look? 

I had managed to maneuver my way into twenty minutes of their precious time from someone I met at the bar (still amazed by that to be honest), and the meeting was about to begin. There, I spoke about my ideas. What I write, why I write, how to stage a shoot, how I want people to feel when they read me and see my art. My own voice sometimes sounded foreign because, well, to be honest, I couldn’t believe I was the one saying these things. A girl on Netflix who’s clever, sharp-tongued, stylish, unshakable in black heels and winged eyeliner. I could almost see her sitting across from them chin tipped just so, answering questions without a tremor. 

Their questions were quick incisions about why you? Why now? What made your words worth their ink and pages? Precise and almost surgical. Each comment felt like a reminder to me that I was fragile, untested, and faintly not to be taken seriously. Their eyes… That easy dismissal just from the first six minutes of my presentation angered me. I was determined almost ferociously so, not to shrink into weakness. If they would see me at all, it would be as someone polished and persistent, definitely not seasoned yet, but unafraid of bruising herself against the walls she climbs. 

Six minutes passed and I carried on. 

They listened longer and their heads began to tilt lower. Questions softened into suggestions and every word they offered was beginning to sound more careful and considerate. I was so, so thankful.

For the next couple of days, I repeatedly attended these meetings until I ran dry on time and energy. They became more and more comfortable, like slipping into a fitting pair of luxurious heels and against all odds, it warmed to my body. Back straight, chin tucked, forehead aligned with chest, legs crossed. A firm handshake, no squeezing. A bright voice, but hey, don’t over do it. Always keep it measured, every glance deliberate. It grew on me naturally.

Occasionally I would return to my room glowing and suffused with the thrill of accomplishment. But more often I left with rejections, told to keep submitting, keep pitching, keep waiting. And in those rooms I often shrank. Belittled, patronized, sometimes even met with sexist comments that cut deeper than intended. I told myself it’s no big deal, though. I’m very good at getting over things when I want to. Wink.

Outside those meetings, I tried to soften the edges of the city with small moments of connection—dates, conversations, new friendships. Sometimes it was laughter over food in Midtown. Sometimes late-night biking over bridges, or quiet mornings in cafés, scribbling thoughts into my journal. The right environment seemed to draw out the best parts of me, and in that presence, I saw the person I was still becoming. I thought a lot about my comfort zone, about the life I was building abroad. Someone once told me to be delusional about my future but be realistic about the present, and in New York, I truly was embodying that. Maybe that’s because I hadn’t pushed myself in a while, so facing such scrutiny from editors and interviewers forced me to see what I was capable of. Growth never feels comfortable anyways, but that discomfort reminded me that I could stand on my feet tall and hold myself intellectually, and within that solitude, I was able to measure my hunger, my ambition, my potential.

And just as I began to settle into that rhythm, Lily arrived.

* * *

Part 2 - New York together

Lily is my best friend from home. Her sweetness isn’t fragile, it’s tensile, woven with an inner steel that appears only when it’s needed. Thoughtful and exact, she carries herself with a balance of grace and sternness I’ve always admired, and when my composure falters, hers steadies the air between us. Nonetheless, what I love most about her is her heart. It’s luminous, warm, patient, wholly unpretentious, the kind of heart that makes you believe in sincerity again. (Lils, if you’re reading this, ily <3 but this is why we will have allegations hahaha.)

It was her first time in New York and traveling with her brought a new kind of thrill to me, one edged with nervous excitement. I was used to solo trips for about two years now, but this time around, I would navigate the streets not just for myself, but alongside someone whose curiosity both mirrored and expanded my own. The thought exhilarated and unnerved me at the same time. Those subway rides that had once carried me alone now carried the two of us together while our conversations spun freely, untethered and alive, and I loved every moment of it. I felt like I was watching my own life overlap with home, friendship, and everything I’d built away from it.

We’d taken the train from EWR after a red-eye flight, both of us barely awake as the sun slanted sharply through the subway car. It struck me then how much happier I was and how much softer life felt when shared. On my last trip, when exhaustion hit, I would just sink into music with my AirPods and try to disappear into my own head. But this time, I didn’t have to retreat inward. We had each other, and knowing that was comforting.

By the time we reached Manhattan, we dropped our suitcases at the hotel and immediately went to ‘work’. 

“Time to beat my face up with makeup,” I said, laughing. That giddy, uncontainable sense of thrill that belongs only to two girls having fun. 

We had four full days there and our goal was to experience New York as it was.

The first morning, we got brunch at an adorable cafe called Buvette, a place that could have been lifted straight from a Parisian alley with French accents scattering its chairs and mirrors. Everything shimmered with elegance, but the food was disappointingly just alright.

Afterward, we drifted from shop to shop, tracing our fingers along glass perfume bottles and peering into boutiques so carefully decorated that each corner felt like an instagram-worthy backdrop. We found the Friends apartment, took our photos, and by the time we reached Magnolia Bakery for our mandatory banana pudding, our bodies began to surrender. Our legs grew heavy and a painful headache kicked in beneath the gray-blue hours of the morning. We were two shadows slumped together on a random park bench, arguing with pigeons that encroached on our space until we fended them off, and laughing so hysterically at ourselves that passersby might have thought we were mad.

Later, Chelsea Piers. Another slump. The red-eye had drained us, and we sat there like ghosts of ourselves watching the water shimmer and time blur. We simply existed until we could finally check into the hotel at 2PM, with merely three hours of sleep in our pockets and a bunch of delirious joy.

We took a short nap, got ready, and rushed to dinner with my old friend Ruka. The three of us talked about growing up, about how some parts of ourselves we kept and others we shed, and I felt a small joy in watching two stages of my life intersect in this little New York restaurant. I thought I’d outgrown San Mateo, but seeing Ruka felt like home, and knowing that my friends were getting along well was love I didn’t know could be so tangible. We settled the night at our hotel’s rooftop bar with more conversations and espresso martinis and vodkas, then we wandered back through Fifth Avenue unsteadily but light. The three of us leaned on the railing, snapping photos under bright glimmers as we laughed at our attempts to capture the perfect angle. #Girlhood Yay. I noticed how different the city felt this time around. For once, I didn’t have to rehearse my sentences or sit perfectly upright. I saw the city reborn through their wonder and a belonging so sweet no solo adventure had ever offered to me. 

The following days were a series of rich, fleeting experiences. We were booked with more restaurant reservations, bars, galleries, museums, Central Park, Soho, Chinatown, etc. Too many details to capture but each so fun, so memorable. Lily looked at the skyline with fresh eyes, and in watching her, I saw it anew too. The dinners that had once tested me felt so much softer, and we kept returning to the small joys of a shared cookie from Levain Bakery. I was genuinely so filled with love and joy that seemed to glow warmly in my chest. Only the rawness of being around someone who has witnessed my worst and scariest and most unguarded self mattered to me. 

Perhaps this is where absence comes full circle. The week I spent alone in New York sharpened my hunger to push beyond my comfort zone, and being with Lily showed me how companionship could soften that hunger without dulling it.

* * *

On our third night, we found ourselves in a small neighborhood Irish bar in Upper East Side, the kind where Christmas lights hung year-round. It was narrow and low-ceilinged, and we ordered two Modelo beers while watching people sing their hearts out in karaoke. The amber glow fell over us like liquid, pooling in the spaces between our bodies as I traced the rim of my glass with my thumb. A restless orbit of thought and shame rushed in me, and I confessed aloud the heaviness I carried.

“I feel guilty,” I confessed, my thumb still circling the rim of the glass. “Guilty for wanting to move. For wanting more than what I already have. For liking solitude and craving connection at the same time. For never being able to stay still.”

Lily looked at me with steady eyes. She is in so many ways, my opposite: composed when I am not, optimistic where I am skeptical, deliberate where I am impulsive. Around her, I always felt safe opening up. Something I rarely feel with others.

“You’re not guilty,” she said softly. Her voice was low and firm, thickening the air with a reassuring gravity. “Craving more, moving forward, even feeling unsettled… That’s just part of life. You know, you don’t have to carry it alone. Sometimes, it’s okay to let someone else witness it with you, and let that make the weight lighter. You also shouldn’t look back at the past too often! Stress only turns harmful if you turn it inward and behind. Let yourself feel things without reasoning about them and look ahead of you.”

Her words didn’t land to me as advice. It kind of dissolved the walls I had built so meticulously around my heart.

I realized I had lived as a solitary alchemist of emotion, turning feeling into thought, thought into categorization, categorization into analysis, and analysis into control. And here, with her, that apparatus collapsed. I had spent so much of my life trying to intellectualize my emotions without letting anyone in. Anyone who knows me knows I bear every fragment of hurt and disappointment by myself. I thought that being strong meant carrying the world on my shoulders alone, but here, in that dim-lit Irish bar, all that machinery fell away. I saw the same truth Mr. Collins had tried to tell me months ago, but Lily helped me see a different truth without her knowing: Not all who offer advice will shape my path, but some, if I let them, can illuminate it in ways I never could alone.

We spoke of our goals for the year and the subtle ways this trip had changed us both. Words tumbled out and I understood, slowly, that real friendship is also an endless unveiling. You think you know someone until a single conversation casts them in a new light, reminding you that no one is ever truly finished and everyone is going through the same form of evolving. True friendship is always revealing and always tenderly breaking you open so you might know yourself anew through the eyes of another. And that to me, is beautifullll! I love my friends <3.

So, this is to every kid living alone far away from home. You don’t need to be made of steel to be seen as strong. Yes, you don’t have to take advice—and honestly, I still think it’s better not to take most people’s advice—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your worries. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to measure growth by how much I endure alone. I thought strength meant never needing help, never letting anyone see the messy corners of me. And yet, sitting with Lily, letting her witness my restlessness, my hunger, my small triumphs and painful failures, I realized that some parts of life are not meant to be fixed. They are meant to be felt and shared. Drive and hunger are necessary, and there will always be this restless drive to build a life from scratch by yourself when you’re abroad, to chase your dreams and make your family back at home proud. But that drive does not have to be carried alone, even if you think others may not relate to you. The weight feels lighter when someone sees the unpolished, messy sides of you and stays anyway. Independence teaches clarity, sharpness, and endurance. But companionship dissolves you into softness and warmth. Both matter.

Embarrassment is one of those parts, too. To stumble, to fumble, to make a fool of yourself is not a weakness. It is proof that you care enough to risk looking imperfect. Go take that advice. Or do not. Who cares? It does not matter. Let yourself feel, go out of your comfort zone, and care less about arriving but more about who you are becoming and the people you meet along the way. Some parts of life aren’t meant to be solved; they’re meant to be shared and struggled through together.

And, lastly, maybe that is what being twenty-three is for. I am not even gonna sugarcoat it but twenty-three is seriously the most confusing age I’ve ever lived so far. It’s an age where you think you need to have everything figured out when in truth, you have only just started. Learning that clarity does not only come from independence or ambition, but from openness. From letting someone walk beside you when life feels heavy and laughing at yourself while still moving forward. The moments that linger, the ones that make your chest ache and your stomach twist with warmth, are rarely the achievements or the applause. They are the unguarded pieces of life you share with someone who sees you as you are and chooses to stay anyway. It could be a friend, a lover, your parents... And in that, I am beginning to understand how there lies a different kind of strength, one that is human, messy, and unexpectedly luminous.

Well, I guess writing this is a form of me giving advice too, which is hilariously ironic because I also support not taking people’s advice conveniently. Here’s the thing. The point is to find that balance in being so certain by yourself that you can stand tall without worrying about others, but also know it is okay to depend on others when you need, as long as you choose the right people. Life is messy, unpredictable, and full of awkward, beautiful moments that you can’t always control. So lean into it. Laugh at your own mistakes. Sit with your restlessness. Unserious the serious stuff. Share it with someone who matters. Trust that the little, imperfect pieces of yourself because that is exactly what make life luminous and brings people together closely.

Rahhh. You only live once, go have fun and make a fool out of yourself. Just as much as I think making a blog is sometimes cringe and embarrassing… F it! Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion! :D

Learning as I go,

Christa

PS: Thank you to Lily and Sean for inputs and editing. Appreciate it. xx