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Why rituals matter, and why I’m leaning into the ones I grew up with

If you walk through any museum, you’ll notice how much of what we know about ancient cultures comes from ritual. Offerings, vessels, jewelry, charms, garments. It wasn’t “just” decoration. These objects carried meaning: protection, luck, fertility, gratitude. They were the stuff of daily life. They were reminders that people weren’t just surviving, but living with intention.

Yet, in modern life, rituals so often slip away. Efficiency replaced them. Why steep medicinal tea when you can swallow a pill? Why cook a traditional dish when takeout is faster? Individualism eroded the collective. Science flattened mystery into data. Migration and assimilation push people to blend in and leave behind practices that mark them as “other”. Slowly, rituals become remnants of a time that once was, tucked into memory or behind museum glass.

I don’t think the human need for ritual ever disappears. It’s written into us. That’s why you see people lighting candles for self-care, rolling out yoga mats, or crafting morning routines as if they were sacred rites. Having a warm beverage every morning is a ritual of mine (as is my husband’s process of making me one). Sports fans paint their faces for a game, birthdays are celebrated with a cake and a song.

Lately, I’ve found myself leaning into the rituals I grew up around, especially the Chinese ones. I was inspired to write about this topic because I reached for “cooling” foods last week. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are “cooling” and “heaty” foods, and you need to maintain balance. I’ve been breaking out and biting my cheeks after eating lots of spicy and fried foods (“heaty”), so I had melon (“cooling”) for dessert every day for a week. Look, I believe in science, but I also believe in centuries-old wisdom — especially when it clears up my skin.

Other Chinese rituals I practice: Eating chicken and noodles on my birthday, because chicken is good luck and long noodles mean long life. Wearing my jade bangle for protection, even though it was definitely seen as auntie-core when I was a kid (and let’s be real, it’s gorgeous). Wearing red for the moments I need luck or celebration. Lighting incense to purify my home’s energy and ward away bad juju.

These might look like superstitions from the outside (“I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious” – Michael Scott). But to me, they’re more than that. They’re ways of staying tethered to a lineage and a community, even when modern life tries to strip that away. When I eat my birthday noodles, I’m not just having dinner, I’m celebrating a tradition practiced for centuries. When I rock my jade bangle, I’m carrying a piece of my heritage that protects me in ways both seen and unseen.

Rituals like these remind me that love, protection, and belonging don’t always need to be spoken outright. Sometimes they’re eaten, sometimes they’re worn, sometimes they live in tiny gestures. The older I get, the more I understand why my parents and grandparents clung to these small acts, even as they built new lives in a new country. Rituals weren’t just habits. They were identity, they were culture. They were a way of saying “we’re still us even in a different place.”

Maybe modern society wants to sand down those edges, to make everything faster, smoother, easier, optimized (ooh, I have a whole post’s worth of opinions about optimization, but I digress), homogenized. But I don’t think ease is the point. Rituals slow us down. They make us pause, notice, connect. They remind us that even the smallest things — a bowl of noodles, a jade necklace, a red shirt — can turn the everyday into something meaningful.

I think that’s why I find myself craving them more now. I want to slow down, connect, find meaning in the mundane, and be more intentional about what I do and why I do it. I also think — in a full-circle kind of way — that I want these rituals for the same reasons my parents did. They’re not just rituals I practice… they’re rituals that hold onto me.

There’s probably more to unpack here, but for now, I’m happy acknowledging my rituals, even if they seem a little stitious.

When words aren’t right, or aren’t enough.

Food has always been my love language. It’s how I’ve said thank you, let’s celebrate, I thought of you, I hope you feel better, I love you. The form varies from store-bought supermarket cupcakes to homemade paella, but the act itself has always been the same. Offering someone food is offering them nourishment. Something that, even if for just a moment, feels like love.

I feel a particular sense of satisfaction in feeding someone. Watching them eat, noticing their little food happy dance, seeing the way their shoulders drop just a little after the first bite, hearing the hum of approval as they go back for more. Food cuts through the walls that words sometimes hit. You don’t need to craft the perfect sentence to show affection or support; you can just hand someone a plate of delicious food. You can make your cousin’s favorite Thanksgiving dish, that you usually don’t make, because you care. You can give homemade snickerdoodles to your neighbors because you want to share the Christmas spirit. I feel this joy even when I didn’t personally make the food; if what I ordered at a restaurant is delicious, you bet I’ll offer a bite to everyone at the table.

I often think about how food is tied to memory and belonging. Recipes are like love letters passed down generations, sometimes in exact measurements, sometimes just in the muscle memory of how much spice to add “until it smells right”. Anyone who’s ever asked an Asian mom for a recipe knows exactly what I mean. Cooking is never just about the meal. It’s about who you were when you first tasted it, who you were when you first learned how to make it, and who you’re with when you make it again. Maybe that’s why I’m so hell-bent on recreating my favorite dishes from childhood.

I feel this most vividly when I make chicken curry. My late mother-in-law made chicken curry for me whenever we went to her house — because I, in particular, loved her chicken curry. (I also grew up eating a very similar version of chicken curry. Burmese food has a lot of similarities to some Indian food.) When the pandemic had us all in lockdown in 2020, we realized we didn’t know when we would next have Mom’s food. So we asked her to film herself cooking, so that we would learn how to make her recipes and be able to replicate them at home. Not the same as having her home cooking, but we would hopefully make a decent facsimile to tide us over until we could visit again. I watched that video more times than I can count, pausing and rewinding, trying to translate her handfuls and pinches and “one teaspoon” (that was actually just a random green spoon in her kitchen) into written measurements.

Little did we know that that would be one of our favorite ways to remember my mother-in-law and honor her. Every time I cook that curry, I’m not just feeding us. I’m keeping her present at the table. The recipe isn’t just instructions; it’s her love letter, written in garlic and ginger and haldi and jeera. Every bite is a reminder that she loved us, that we loved her, and that love can live on through something as simple as a pot of curry.

Food isn’t only how I give love — it’s also how I’ve received it. A month or so after my dad died, I stopped into one of our favorite Chinese takeout spots in town. The owner, Peter, welcomed me in and said, “I haven’t seen you in a while.” I told him, “Yeah, we’ve been out of town a lot. My dad was sick, and he passed away.” Peter nodded, handed me my order, and said, “Take it.” No fuss or grand gesture, just a simple act of kindness in the form of beef and broccoli, fried rice, and hot and sour soup. I almost cried right there at the counter. Because food is love.

If my mother-in-law’s curry taught me that food can carry memory forward, that night at the takeout counter reminded me food can also hold you when everything falls apart. Food carries love in ways that words can’t always reach. Whether it’s a family recipe or a carton of pork fried rice, the message is the same: You are cared for.

Food doesn’t erase grief or solve problems, but sure makes things easier to deal with. It gives us something warm to hold when everything else feels uncertain or shitty. It creates a moment of connection. Fleeting, maybe, but real enough to remind us that life is still here, and so is love.

What’s interesting about food as a love language is its impermanence. The meal disappears, sometimes in minutes. The plates are cleared, the leftovers stored in mismatching tupperware, the flavors only lingering faintly in the air. But the love doesn’t vanish with the meal. It leaves an imprint: a memory, a feeling of being cared for, a moment of connection.

Food nourishes the body, and it nourishes the heart. It’s the language that doesn’t need words, a universal way to say: you are loved.

Because the best parts of who we are might be the things we’ll never get paid for. 

The last time someone asked me, “So, what do you do for work?” I felt… gross? Not just mildly annoyed, but a visceral, whole-body recoil. I probably made a face and immediately stifled it before responding. For most of my life, I thought of that question as harmless small talk, but now it makes me bristle. Why? Because in American society, we’ve decided that who you are is the same as what you do for money. Your self-worth, your identity, and your place in the social hierarchy are all filtered through your profession.

It’s not a neutral question. It’s shorthand for class, status, ambition. Growing up in the NYC area, I realized that “what do you do?” wasn’t usually about genuine curiosity. It was about sorting. Sometimes even before you knew someone’s name, you knew whether they were “worth your time.” And I went along with it, because that’s what everyone else did.

But the older I get, the more it feels like a trap. When someone asks me now, I hear the unspoken rule: if it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t matter.

Take hobbies. The moment you start one, someone will ask if you’re going to monetize it. Make mugs and bowls? “Ooh, are you going to sell them on Etsy?” Learn to paint? “Have you thought about taking commissions?” Bake sourdough? “You should start a bakery!” As if joy alone isn’t enough of a reason to do something. As if the only legitimate purpose of creativity is commerce. As if the goal of creation is to start a side hustle. Admittedly, I’ve fallen into that trap myself, wondering if I should sell the little trinket dishes I make at the studio. But I know that once something fun becomes work, it becomes… well, work.

Which is why it felt especially interesting when that dreaded question came up at the pottery studio. The one place I feel free to create without worrying about work. I know this time the person probably meant it sincerely, but still, it made me twinge.

I’ve noticed how much this obsession with productivity feels uniquely American. Maybe even more concentrated on the coasts. When we first moved to Denver, we sat at the bar of a burger joint, and the bartender asked, “What do you do?” Being East Coasters, we rattled off our jobs. He laughed: “No, like, do you ski? Mountain bike? What do you DO?” That moment really shifted my perspective and made me realize there are other ways to answer that question.

And yet, I still default to the job title answer. Maybe that’s why I felt especially uncomfortable this time: I don’t really have a full-time profession at the moment. I certainly no longer want to be identified as only what I do for work. And that’s why I didn’t know how to answer in the “right” way, the way that is expected.

But maybe there’s a better way altogether. Why reduce someone to their LinkedIn headline (side note: ugh, LinkedIn, what a necessary evil. EVIL.)? Why flatten entire lives into a single line on a business card?

There are richer questions:

• What’s been bringing you joy lately? (Having an umbrella in the backyard so I can enjoy being outside without burning to a crisp)
• What have you learned lately / what are you learning right now? (I learned to drive a manual transmission / I’m learning about Hawaiian history while watching “Chief of War”)
• What’s something you’re looking forward to? (Going to two!! concerts at Red Rocks next week)

I’d rather answer any of those. I’d rather ask any of those. Because they tell me so much more than “I’m a software engineer” or “I work in finance.”

I don’t want to be asked what I do for work anymore.

Because the best parts of who we are might be the things we’ll never get paid for. (But, like, if you want to pay me for my writing or drawing or pottery, I wouldn’t say no. A girl’s got bills to pay.)

Community is built in small, everyday ways.

No, this isn’t another post about coffee.

I’ve had a really good few weeks. Not because anything big or special happened. There were no grand trips, no major milestones, no celebrations. My days have been good because I — we — have been with our people.

For someone as introverted as I am, it might surprise you to hear that my cup is so full right now. As it turns out, introversion doesn’t mean I don’t love being with people. It just means the type of connection matters. When the company is nourishing, I leave more energized than when I arrived. (And when it’s shallow, chaotic, or draining in any way… I leave empty.)

There was a fantastic tasting menu dinner with excellent company. We got to know a loved one’s new significant other — the kind of meeting that can be exciting and awkward in equal measure — and it ended up being wonderful. We swapped family stories, she got a peek into our “family” dynamic, and the comfort level rose fast enough to create the kind of inside jokes that feel instant. There was a lot of laughter.

Another night, we had dinner with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, at a Denver neighborhood staple. We thought about going somewhere new and trendy, but decided instead to revisit a local mainstay. Over a bottle of red wine (I couldn’t tell you what kind, since I let someone else choose), we talked about how sad it is when long-standing restaurants close, and how important it is to support the ones we love. The food was still excellent, the drinks simple but perfect — but most of all, the company made the night. I couldn’t tell you everything we talked about, but I can tell you how it felt: light, warm, and easy.

Then there was the casual dinner we hosted at home. This summer has been relentlessly hot — 90+ degrees for days on end — so we offered our air conditioning, along with a simple, budget-friendly meal. Outside, the air was heavy and still, the kind that sticks to your skin (why has this summer been so humid?! We thought we moved away from humidity!), but inside, the cool hum of the AC made everyone instantly relax. That night, we learned more than we expected about plants and hydroponics, the dogs got a playdate, and we got the kind of conversation that lingers with you.

We also visited one of my favorite restaurants in Denver, where we know the chef-owners and staff. We brought them bags of candy because we knew it’s their fuel, and in return, we got hugs, quick chats, and the camaraderie of people who are happy to see you walk in.

Not all of these moments happened over dinner, though.

I saw my hair stylist, someone I’ve been going to for a few years now. We caught up on the six weeks since our last visit, and she asked about my pottery. It’s a small kindness that lands bigger than you’d expect. There’s something affirming about someone remembering your little side projects; it makes you feel seen. And of course, I asked about her upcoming trip to Greece, and we yapped and yapped while she was giving my hair a much-needed trim.

Speaking of pottery, I went to the studio last week and learned how to make a lidded jar. It was a bit of a group effort, the kind of collaborative cheerleading that’s built into the pottery community. We swapped tips, laughed at our mistakes, and as it tends to happen, the conversation somehow drifted from clay techniques to imposter syndrome.

And all of this was just within the last two weeks.

With each shared meal, each story, each burst of joyful-tears laughter, I’ve felt a little more grounded. A little more connected. A little more seen. A lot more appreciated, and appreciative. The last two weeks have been a beautiful reminder that community isn’t always about large gatherings or elaborate plans. It’s often about a handful of people who just get you, and the cumulative effect of those small moments is what keeps you going.

My cup is full. And when it’s full, it’s easier to pour into the people who fill mine.

I never mean to fall into rabbit holes, but here we are.

We just wanted a quote for windows and doors.

We got the quote, but not before we got a crash course in frame materials, insulation ratings, building codes, and product design patents. I now know the terms “double-hung” and “casement” and the difference between the two. The sales guy brought in an actual window and a heat lamp to demo how well that window would insulate the house. He had opinions about the different kinds of handles and the ergonomics of them.

Turns out there’s an entire universe of windows… and doors. I stepped away for a bit to take a call, and when I was done, R asked me what door style I preferred. “Idk, one that opens, closes, locks, and seals?” I suddenly had to think about which way I want my doors to open. Which side to have the hinges on. Whether I want any glass panes, and if so, how many. The material, the handle, the color, whether the front and side door should match. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

There’s a whole person immersed in that universe — someone who has spent years, maybe decades (as our particular window guy did), learning the ins and outs of something I barely thought about until now.

And I think that’s beautiful.

Not because I suddenly care deeply about windows and doors (though, honestly, I now notice window and door details more). But because he cared. You could tell he had seen it all: the houses that cut corners, the craftsmanship that still makes him proud, the tiny details most people never notice, but that he notices every single time.

We had a fun week of sales pitches and quotes and bids for house projects that we’ve been putting off for a while, so not just windows and doors. One of those projects is repainting the exterior of our house, and the paint guy had all kinds of thoughts about paint! About paint quality, yes, but also about weather exposure and surface prep and which colors fade fastest in Colorado weather and sun. He walked me through his team’s whole process, start to finish. He also did me a solid and gave me a few of his favorite color combinations to choose from. Seeing how many shades of white exist made my eyes glaze over.

And before the house projects, when we were buying this house in the first place… If you’ve been in the housing market long enough, you (well, maybe only if you’re me?) eventually find yourself an expert on zoning laws, easements, subfloors, and all the perks of living in a particular neighborhood. You can walk into a house and know exactlywhat to look for — the ceiling height, the slope of the lot (always get the water away from the house), the difference between sturdy and cheap finishes, the story behind a weirdly placed vent. We had been looking for our current house for years, and soon enough, our real estate agent was impressed by what I was checking out in every house. (I think he now checks if cabinets and drawers are soft close, every time.)

Plants are another example. Any decent plant shop has someone who can break down exactly why your pothos is leggy (it’s searching for light) or your snake plant is sad (it’s probably overwatered). They’ve studied light and water, learned how to propagate from a single node, and can tell you the difference between healthy and hopeless in an instant. And suddenly you realize someone has spent years learning which vegetables grow well together and which don’t. As someone who’s unalived many plants in my lifetime, I know this was hard-won expertise earned through A LOT of trial and error.

Expertise doesn’t always get framed as awe-inspiring, but it is. Somewhere out there, someone knows everything about the thing you just discovered. They’ve followed its changes, memorized the details, and developed a feel for what matters. And they light up when you ask a question most people overlook, when you show even an ounce of curiosity.

And it’s not just about trades or technical fields. There are experts in all fields, even fields you didn’t realize were fields. Someone can taste a wine and tell you the exact grape, region, and year. Someone can identify a bird by its call, or mushrooms by their shape — and knows which ones are edible and which ones are deadly (I guess that applies to both birds and mushrooms?). Someone knows every storyline (even the diverging ones, iykyk) in a decades-long comic book arc. Someone can identify which mushrooms are yummy and which ones will kill you. Someone understands the nuances of vintage cars — and really understands the nuances of vintage Porsches. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a generalist, I love having many, many, MANY interests, but I also think it’s beautiful that there are people who go so deep into a subject. There’s joy in being able to explain why something works the way it does — and in watching someone else come alive as they do.

There’s so much in this world to learn, and I’ll continue to lean in whenever someone nerds out about something I don’t understand.

On letting go of the post I thought I *should* write.

I was all set to write about my 2018 trip to Burma this week.

It’s a topic that means a lot to me — layered and personal and emotional and culturally significant. My dad grew up there. I went with him. It was the first and last trip we took together as adults. There’s so much I want to say.

But I couldn’t figure out the narrative, the thread, the shape, the entry point, the… words. My brain feels like a pan of scrambled eggs. I procrastinated for a week, and here I am on Monday evening, still stuck. It’s just not happening right now.

Every time I sat down to write, I felt blocked. Not just a “staring into the abyss of a blank page” kind of stuck, but a heavier resistance. The kind that made me question why I was forcing it.

I don’t want to write because I have to. So I asked myself:

• Why am I pushing myself to write right now? (Because I told myself I’d stick to a weekly schedule.)
• Who am I writing this for? (It should be… me, no?)
• Why am I being so hard on myself about sticking to this exact topic, this exact week? (This week marks six years without him, which felt timely and important.)
• Am I trying to prove something, and if so, to whom? (Maybe? But I have nothing to prove to anyone. Surely not on Substack where people can read my writing for free.)
• Am I confusing consistency with rigidity? (Probably.)

That line of questioning gave me clarity:

• I don’t have to write something meaningful just because I planned to.
• I don’t have to dig deep on a topic just because I told myself I would.
• I don’t owe anyone anything.
• What I owe, at most, is honesty with myself.

And the truth is, I’m just not feeling it this week. I don’t have the words this week. For anything, and definitely not for a long-form post about a heartfelt topic.

It feels so meta to write a bunch of words about not having the words, but I guess that’s what this week’s post is about. It’s ok to put things on the shelf for later. It’s ok to pivot. It’s ok to create from where you are, not from where you think you should be.

And where I am today is tired. Not everything has to be on a schedule or deadline.

That’s it. That’s the post.

P.S. – I really hate that every time I use an em dash (and I actually use an en dash because it’s shorter, and therefore, I use it incorrectly, and idc, y’all get the point), I second-guess it because everyone will think it’s AI. I overcompensate by keeping all my run-on sentences to prove I’m not a robot, but a rambling human.

Breaking free from the algorithm is kinda nice.

Some of my favorite discoveries didn’t come from plans, algorithms, or five-star reviews. They came from wandering, wondering, and paying attention (sometimes in the form of eavesdropping on strangers’ conversations).

I didn’t plan to learn about txakoli wine. But one thing led to another, and suddenly I was deep in the internet rabbit hole of Basque winemaking like it was my new life’s calling.

My txakoli deep dive happened online, but it was sparked irl, at our neighborhood wine shop. And not in the usual way, either. Normally, I pick up a bottle and get curious about something on the label. This time, we were just browsing, trying to decide what wines to keep on hand for when people come over, when R turned to me and asked, “Should we pick something up for Chuckly?” (“Chuckly” is a nickname he uses when someone is annoying but lovable — sometimes even for our dog.)

The wine store clerk overheard his question and said, “We have both red and white Chuckly!”

… what?

She gestured to the shelf, and I saw it: txakoli. Both red and white. Txakoli is pronounced, you guessed it: Chuckly. 

That moment didn’t come from a color-coded to-do list or an Instagram recommendation. It came from being out in the world, living life and paying attention.

We live in a world that is very online. Algorithmic and curated, designed to show us exactly what we want — before we even know we want it. Or at least, what the internet thinks we want. Personalized newsfeeds, curated playlists, autofill email responses, targeted ads that make you feel certain your phone is always listening.

But sometimes, you don’t know what you want until it surprises you. And the algorithms don’t leave a lot of room for surprise.

Some of my favorite memories didn’t come from a color-coded travel spreadsheet or hours of research of “what to do in [insert destination here]”. They came from wandering, from overhearing, from being open to adventure. Some of them are:

• We met our now-close friends in a random shoe store we wandered into in Florence.
• We found an amazing off-the-tourist-beaten-path cocktail bar in Maui after overhearing some locals talking about it.
• We ended up in a tiny sushi restaurant in Tokyo, with no reservations and no plan, having a private dining experience with two friendly regulars who turned dinner into a whole experience.
• I found my ceramics studio after chatting with someone at a local pottery pop-up.

None of those things would’ve happened if we had stuck to the plan (or had a plan in the first place). So how do we un-curate our lives a little and leave room for moments like these?

We spend a lot of energy trying to optimize our time: Get in, get out, get the best version, maximize the moment. It often, at least for me, ends up in analysis paralysis and/or decision fatigue. But sometimes the most memorable parts of life are the ones you couldn’t have scheduled if you tried.

So I’ve been trying to… try less. Here’s what that looks like for me:

Leaving room at the edges. Not filling every block of time with a task (it’s been a hard habit to break). Letting there be gaps and wiggle room. Space to breathe, to wander, to see where the day wants to take me.

Saying yes to small talk. Even if it’s awkward or boring, because sometimes a casual chat with a stranger in an elevator or a grocery store aisle or a random shoe store in Italy… turns into a whole story later.

Taking a risk and going off script. Trying the new spot with only five reviews, picking the unfamiliar bottle of wine, asking a human instead of Google for a recommendation.

Stay curious. Letting a question linger instead of immediately Googling it. Guessing, wondering, asking someone nearby. It’s harder than it sounds when the internet is in my pocket.

I’m not anti-algorithm. I like when Apple Music plays a throwback I forgot I loved. I appreciate a well-targeted restaurant rec. There’s comfort in seeing familiar faces on my feed. But I think it’s healthy to pop the bubble once in a while.

If all we ever see is more of what we already like, we could start mistaking the algorithm for the whole world. We start to think we already know what’s out there. We miss the strange, the funny, the offbeat, the oddly specific. We miss what’s just beyond the edges of the algorithm.

What if we stopped trying to optimize every experience and let some of them simply unfold? What if we got comfortable not knowing exactly where we’re going, or how long it’ll take, or whether it’ll be worth it? (This goes against my Type A tendencies, but your girl is trying!)

Because sometimes, the worth is in the wondering… or the wandering. The next delightful thing might not be trending, might not have thousands of reviews, might not even be on the map… but it might be just around the corner. You just have to be a little more open and little more willing to be surprised. And maybe you’ll end up buying txakoli for Chuckly. 

If I could find a way… (Do you have Cher stuck in your head now? Do you?)

I spent the last two weeks in Crested Butte, Colorado. It’s a beautiful (butte-iful?) little mountain town about four hours from Denver. Scenic drives and hiking trails featuring alpine lakes, aspen groves, and abundant wildflowers are readily accessible from here, and the town itself is top tier when it comes to good food and solid locally owned businesses. 

All that to say, it was so easy for me to pop out and do something awesome at any point of my day. And for the most part, I did just that.

I’m working part-time, and it’s given me a lot of flexibility I’ve never had before. Sure, I have to be online for meetings at certain times, but I try my hardest to structure my days into blocks. For example, if I have meetings at 9:30 and 11:30, I’ll plan to work from, say, 9 to noon. And then I’ll do whatever I want for the rest of the day. In Crested Butte, I sometimes went on a short hike, or drove up to the lake, or walked into art galleries around town. Sometimes, I came back and did some “offline” work for another block of time. But the point is, I feel like I’ve reclaimed ownership of my time.

On paper, I’ve always understood the benefits of owning my time and choosing how I want to spend it. Admittedly, it has felt like a pipe dream. One of those concepts you nod along to in a podcast and then immediately dismiss because your calendar is packed and your inbox is exploding and you’re staring at multiple browser windows, each with 17 tabs open. I understood it intellectually. But in practice, it never quite clicked… until now.

For the first time in my adult working life, I have a schedule with flexibility. Not just flexibility in where I work (remote work has truly changed my life), but flexibility in how I work. I have breathing room between meetings. Time to cook and enjoy lunch at home. Time to play with my dog. Time to read, or write, or even stare off into space and do nothing. Time to take a walk without needing to negotiate it with my never-ending to-do list.

I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been gripping my life until I finally — accidentally? — let go a little.

When you’re working full-time (and let’s be real: for many people, that means working more than the 40 hours that defines “full-time”), it’s hard to separate the structure of your job from the structure of your life. You start living in hour blocks: “I have time for a quick coffee before my 10am standup,” or “maybe after my 4:30.” You can only rest after your inbox is cleared, only go for a walk after your deliverable is shipped. And even then, there’s guilt. There’s always guilt.

I spent years organizing my time around the needs of other people. Meetings, deadlines, availability windows, the dreaded “HOLD” on the calendar. And when you’re good at your job and care about your work, it’s easy to lose sight of how much time you’re giving away. Because being good at your job doesn’t just mean doing what’s asked. It often means anticipating what might be asked, especially in my line of work. Which means you’re never really off. You’re just… “between asks”. Ew. When you put it that way… ew.

This trip reminded me that there’s another way to structure a day, and that it’s not just a vacation thing.

When I was up in the mountains, I worked fewer hours during the week and still got all the important stuff done. And maybe that’s the lesson: when you’re not exhausted or resentful, your work gets more focused. You procrastinate less, you make quicker decisions. And then you close your laptop, mentally detach, and take a hike. Literally.

I think the biggest shift is internal. It’s not just about time management; it’s about mindset. When you feel like you own your time, you approach it differently. You protect it and spend it more intentionally. You are in every minute. There are many reasons for my internal shift, which I will write about eventually, but being forced into having a lot of free time is one of them.

Being busy was all I knew how to do. I think it was a bit of a “boiling frog” situation, but I also think it was proof to myself that I was doing something right, something worthwhile. Saying “I’m slammed this week” became common, and made me feel needed, useful, important. But that kind of validation comes with a price. And when the busyness finally eased up, I realized I don’t miss it at all.

What I did miss was this current version of myself. The version of me who sits outside in the yard, reading a book. Who has ideas in the shower (and not about work!). Who writes more, thinks more clearly, and is just… less tightly wound. I like this version of me.

I’m trying to reprogram my brain and convince myself that I’m not working less because I’m lazy or burnt out. I’m working less because I can. I have agency! I have the ability to make my own decisions! Admittedly, that’s something that’s hard to wrap my head around.

I used to think full-time work was the “default” and everything else was temporary — a stopgap between jobs or a “funemployment” luxury afforded only to people with generational wealth. But what if that’s just not true? What if we’ve all just internalized capitalism so deeply that anything less than 40+ hours a week feels suspect? (I think I have.)

I don’t have a grand conclusion or a dramatic call to action, but I can tell you this: My days feel different now. And not in a flashy, influencer “design your dream life!” way. More in a “I feel more like myself” kind of way.

Maybe that’s the real luxury. Not necessarily a hike among aspens and wildflowers in the middle of the day (though, yes please), but the ability to live at your own pace and to realize that rest and relaxation doesn’t have to be earned, but simply allowed.

Time is still passing, no matter how you fill it. The question is: Do you feel like it’s yours?

After a ten-year hiatus, coffee and I are back together. 

I learned what an americano was during my training days as a part-time summer barista. Espresso and water. (Yes, watered-down espresso. The Italians are cursing us out.) Who knew something that seemed fancier than plain drip coffee could also be so simple and so delicious? 

I lived off iced americanos ever since I got acquainted. I started off with a tiny splash of milk swirling throughout and one packet of raw sugar sitting at the bottom. I eventually started drinking them black. 

And one day in my mid-20s, I decided to quit coffee. I realized I hated the way it made me feel. The jitter, the stomach gurgles, the rush of caffeine hitting me all at once, the crash in the afternoon. Why was I doing this to myself? So I quit.

This was quietly devastating to me, because I loved coffee. I even tried decaf for a while — hoping I could at least enjoy the taste without the side effects — but it just didn’t taste right. (Though to be fair, decaf has come a long way. I think the coffee people fixed it. Or maybe I’m the one that changed?)

I’ve always loved coffee, even before I was introduced to americanos. As a kid, my favorite ice cream flavor was Haagen-Dazs coffee (a questionable choice for a child, but I had it and loved it). Unlike many people I know, I’ve never needed to “acquire” a taste for it. There are so many people who hate the taste of coffee but guzzle it anyway for the caffeine boost. I didn’t drink it for the energy; I drank it because I genuinely liked it.

My hiatus ended up lasting about ten years. 

I loved tea too, so it was a relatively easy transition to getting any caffeine fix I needed. And I did have some coffee in those ten years. I had the occasional cup while on vacation (immediate happiness that often led to regret), or a few sips from my husband’s cup. I savored every moment of it, and a few sips was often the most I could have before feeling too amped up. 

Even when I wasn’t drinking coffee regularly, I still sought out coffee shops — especially on vacation. Mostly for my husband’s benefit, since he appreciates a great cup of coffee (and, selfishly, so I could have a sip of his). I’d find little spots with a neighborhood feel: locally roasted coffee, handwritten signs, chatty regulars. Even better if they had good tea. I didn’t go for the drink. I went for the feeling, for the ritual. It was the routine that I craved, maybe even more than the coffee. In addition to the routine, it was also the sense of community. We often became regulars at a coffee shop for the duration of our stay. Learned all the baristas’ names, made friends with some of the regulars.

I missed that routine back home too. But it felt weird to hang out at a coffee shop when all I was ordering was a tea and a pastry I sometimes didn’t want. So I stopped going.

And then came a company offsite (in Vegas, mind you, a place where caffeine seems essential).

During a scheduled break, a group of people made their way to the coffee shop. There was coffee and snacks in the adjacent meeting room, sure, but the coffee break was a reason to leave and get a change of scenery. I was exhausted, after travel and after sitting through sessions of company rah-rah. So I decided to risk it all and allow myself to have one of those occasional cups that I knew I would regret later. I ordered an americano, black. My go-to. And I was expensing it, so if I couldn’t handle it and had to abandon it… no harm, nothing to lose. 

And nothing happened. No heart palpitations, no jitters, no feelings of “I’m about to puke”. Just a little cup of joy and the familiar warmth of a ritual I didn’t know I’d been missing.

I soon realized why I was ok with coffee. It turns out that coffee wasn’t the problem. The context was: It was the empty stomach. I never ate breakfast, and only started to have breakfast every day in the last five years or so. Ten years ago, I still lived in NYC, never eating breakfast, always stressing out, never slowing down. The coffee wasn’t the problem. I was the problem. 

I used to think quitting coffee was a sign of self-awareness, and maybe it was. But coming back to it feels like something else entirely. Not indulgence or regression, but just… coming back to myself?

Returning to coffee made it easier to return to coffee shops, too. Because no matter how much you like chai or loose-leaf tea, it just doesn’t hit the same when you’re at a third-wave coffee shop known for their locally roasted coffee, and ordering anything that isn’t coffee. It feels very “what’s even the point?”

Now I order a real cup. I take a seat, and I feel like I belong. I’ve returned to the ritual, the community, and it’s made me feel a bit more like myself.

I feel like there’s a profound life lesson here, about timing and circumstances being right, or it being ok to take a break from things even if you love them, or something else. I don’t know. All I know is, I feel like I’ve rediscovered something I used to love, and am appreciating it in a new way. 

Life’s connective tissue is weird. Who knew one of mine would be subtitled and set to music?

My dad came home one day with a rented DVD.

The title wasn’t in English. It was spelled out using letters in the English alphabet, but it was definitely a different language.

Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai.

I can’t remember the series of events that led him to rent a Hindi movie from what I presume was a video rental store in Journal Square. Somehow, someone convinced him to rent this movie. The DVD cover art featured a gorgeous woman (Ameesha Patel) and a really buff dude (Hrithik Roshan). We had never watched a Bollywood movie before, and Dad was really eager, so we popped the DVD into the PlayStation 2 (our first DVD player, and only DVD player at the time), and let it roll.

I didn’t know it at the time, but those three hours would weirdly define an ongoing thread in my life.

Those three hours were filled with everything that makes a Bollywood movie great. The over-the-top storyline! The cinematography! The songs, accompanied by impeccably choreographed dance numbers! The way Hrithik Roshan dances! Hrithik Roshan, period!

Since we enjoyed Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai so much, Dad returned to… wherever he rented it… and brought back more Bollywood films. The second DVD was definitely Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the one that cemented Dad’s love for Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), Rani Mukherjee, and Kajol. The third DVD was Mohabbatein, starring SRK and introducing us to Aishwarya Rai.

I want to say most other movies he brought home starred at least one of his favorites: SRK, Rani, Kajol, Hrithik. If a Bollywood movie featured one of those actors and was released in the late 1990s to early 2000s, chances are I’ve seen it. What a random fun fact.

What started as weekend entertainment became a little ritual in our household. We’d laugh at the dramatic pauses, try to mimic the dance moves (mostly failing), and marvel at the costumes and music. Bollywood slowly grew from a curiosity to a comfort — a window into a culture so different from ours, and in many ways, not so different after all.

—

I met my husband at work. He’s Indian-American, and it came up that I’ve seen a lot of Hindi movies. My random fun fact! I might have even seen more recent movies than he had at the time. But it was a way to connect to him and his family’s culture. Because Bollywood is culture. Hollywood might be American culture, I guess, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the way Bollywood lives in Indian culture.

When my dad first met my father-in-law, he left that conversation cracking up. Dad was terrified of meeting my FIL because all he knew about him was that he was very well educated and worked in finance. For some reason, he imagined my FIL would be Amitabh Bachchan — the towering, iconic voice and presence. But when he met a 5’7” bald Indian man with a voice nowhere near Amitabh’s bass, he was both relieved and amused. He really could not stop laughing. What made that moment even funnier was my husband’s comment: “You know what I look like! You think my dad looks like Amitabh Bachchan?!”

We had an Indian wedding. My friends all joked that they would watch Bride and Prejudice to prepare. Luckily, I had already absorbed a decent amount of wedding ceremony basics from all the Bollywood movies I’d seen over the years. I had a general idea of the mandap, the fire, the sindoor — though in the films, it’s always condensed into about five minutes, with a musical interlude and lots of close-ups. Our real wedding didn’t have sweeping crane shots or background dancers — or an elephant — but it did have a costume change, elaborate jewelry, and the pandit (priest) scolding me mid-ceremony for not following his instructions to the letter. The whole thing did feel a bit like a movie. It was beautiful, chaotic, joyful, overwhelming… basically, it was everything I had come to love about Bollywood, and all in one take.

—

We were planning to go to India, and having really suffered from my lack of communication skills the first time I went, I was determined to learn some basic Hindi for the second go-around. I had the brilliant idea to learn language through immersion — an excuse to rewatch my favorite Bollywood films (as long as they were available on Netflix) and maybe watch some new ones.

I learned most of my vocabulary from songs. Turns out, Bollywood bangers aren’t the worst way to pick up vocabulary. Songs have repeating choruses, so you hear the same words over and over. The downside? You mostly learn words related to love.

Here’s my list. A raw copy-and-paste from my Note.

• Aaj- today
• Kyun- why
• Kya- what
• Kabhi- sometimes
• Joot- lies
• Beech men- between
• Ke diya- I said
• Ke do na- Will you say
• Bas- enough
• Divana- crazy boy
• Divani- crazy girl
• Dil- heart
• Pyaar- love
• Pagal- crazy
• Nahi- no
• Koi mil gaya- I found someone
• Kuch- something
• Kush- happy
• Kuch kuch hota hai- something happens
• Tum- you
• Dhosti- friend
• Hay- is
• Suniye- listen / can you hear me

—

Just the other day, my husband was rotating his shoulders, and the movement reminded me of a specific Bollywood dance sequence. I couldn’t remember the name of the song, or the movie. All I could place was the melody of the chorus and the dance move.

“How do you even Google this?”

I thought it could have been from Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai, so I looked up videos of all those songs. Nope. Then I remembered the movie didn’t star Hrithik at all. “What was the movie where SRK played the violin ALL THE TIME?

And then, the answer struck me while we were on our morning dog walk: Mohabbatein! (If you really want to know the song, it was “Aankhein Khuli”, linked for your viewing pleasure.)

There I was, on a random neighborhood street in Denver, reminded once again how those movies quietly weave through my life — like a thread tying my past, my present, and the people I love.

—

My dad came home with a random DVD one day, and I’m pretty sure he had no idea he was setting off a lifelong chain reaction. But that’s the thing about small, unexpected moments. You never know which ones will stick, or which ones will quietly weave themselves into your life. Life’s connective tissue is weird. Who knew one of mine would be subtitled and set to music?