To grow up is to be young again.
Original Publication Date: April 22, 2024
Edited for Readability: February 1, 2026
Today, I drove to pick up my nephew from school. It's been routine to drive him home after school (because I just can't wake up early enough to drop him off in the morning.)
I'm starting to appreciate my hometown a lot more despite the endless chatter from my passenger seat (my dad) which I affectionately acknowledge with a joking jibe or two.
Life has been simple and quiet, incredibly so.
I thought that pursuing a business beyond the gated doors of a strict corporate lifestyle would be even more suffocating. But the opposite was more true. I think in the pursuit of building my own practice, I was able to return to who I was once again - to the child within if you will.
To enjoy the things we weren't able to in our youth.
The streets of my childhood town are hauntingly familiar as they are foreign. There are hallmarks that represent the town that I grew up in, but they're embedded with nuances that remind me that it's a different time.
I'm no longer the child being picked up from school, running along with some friends, or recommending interesting landmarks around the space. Instead, I'm the adult picking up my nephew who's a whole decade younger than I am, vicariously living through his experiences and cafe recommendations (we're a family that loves a drink or two - or more.)
I've spent a huge part of my childhood wanting to escape my hometown, feeling and knowing there was greater opportunity outside in the big city. Tall buildings and big titles - esteemed roles, and established peers.
But as Mark Manson has shared in a podcast.
You can’t just sit on your couch and think your way out of your values. You have to go live them and have them fail you.
Mark Manson
I don't think I've ever enjoyed living in my hometown until these past few years. I used to hate being at home, being stuck where I was. But now, I'm in the same geographical location with the same people but maybe a different frame of mind or just different circumstances.
Today, I look at myself and my life, and many things have changed. I smile more, I laugh more - I see how much more good there is to life and to people. I love more, and I pray more (- to complete this, I eat more.)
I can see a world that could accommodate greater happiness than the dread that characterized my past life's pragmatism.
And I know more, but just as I do - I know that there's a greater library of knowledge beyond human retention that I can sustain - and I find that there is no point of contention or fixation on it.
To express the love we couldn't as children.
My days are now measured in conversations - with my family, with my friends, with my peers, I respect - with the people I admire.
Sometimes, with the books that have become an essential aspect of my learning process and identity-building.
I talk to my nephew about his schooling, what he likes and what he doesn't, what he wants his future to be - and what it's like to navigate a life within the four walls of a classroom.
I talk to my mom about my big plans, my career trajectory, and the businesses I'm building from the ground up (a sure difference from when I was in corporate and would be excessively hushed about my career because it was too stressful.)
I talk to my dad about what it's like to drive, what kind of drinks he likes from the coffee shop (he has a huge sweet tooth!), the kinds of plants he grows in his home garden, and the life experiences he loves to share but that the family rarely had time to sit down and listen to in the past.
I talk to my sisters about our pet dog, work, coffee (once again), random shopping finds, lifestyle choices - and sometimes, about their careers. Mundane things.
I learn about my family all over again, all their quirks and habits. The little things that build their identity, and it makes me think of how we lose sight of what matters when we lose ourselves in the projection of an ideal we wish to have.
In the conversations, I find my language of love - in knowing people in depth. Because in my heart and in my mind, to love someone is to learn how to see the world through their eyes.
Or perhaps, in Dostoevsky's eloquence, it would be that:
To love someone means to see them as God intended them.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
I've always known my sisters and I, although cut from the same genetic fabric, grew up to be very different people.
But the more I learn and immerse myself in the worlds that have spun around my own axis, I learn that there is a sameness in the differences we share.
To live the life we only aspired to have.
It's been beautiful and quiet, quaint and comforting.
Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by how blessed I am to be around people I love who I know love me back. Contentment was once a fever dream, or the outcome of an escapist thought.
I think about this quote by Tom Wolfe far too many times, in the elation of simply being alive - knowing what it was once like to be on the other side.
Is that not the true romantic feeling, not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you?
Tom Wolfe
Related Literature & Inspirations
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Free Access through Project Gutenberg)
Everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton
The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom