Someday

I miss learning things nobody is waiting on. A book I read just because the first page hooked me, a film I argue about afterward, a recipe I ruin twice before it works, a language I speak badly in public and laugh at myself for trying.

I still want to be ambitious in life. I also want a part of me that stays amateur in the best sense: curious, a little undignified, not asking whether it looks good on a profile. Someday I want whole stretches of time that belong only to that version of me.

I grew up around this city and it still surprises me: the noise, the light after monsoon rain, how many human stories fit on one train. Too often I move through it on autopilot, already somewhere else in my head.

I'd like slower evenings: looking up when I walk, calling someone without half my brain on a screen, going to bed tired because I actually showed up for the day, not because I burned out staring at one.

I don't need a cabin in the woods. I need to feel like I chose to be here, in my body, in this place, more days than not.

I have wanted that for as long as I can remember turning the future into something concrete. Not as a rejection of Mumbai or of home, but as a city I have always pictured holding a real chapter of my life, not only a vacation story.

Fog off the Pacific, the hills, the blunt mix of idealism and industry: I want the Bay Area as routines, errands, and ordinary Tuesdays. I have pictured stepping off a plane at SFO and eventually not needing directions every time; someday I want that to be a chapter I lived, not only a loop in my head.

Paperwork, timing, and luck all get a vote. Writing it here is how I admit it matters instead of treating it like a daydream I am not allowed to take seriously.

I'm not chasing yachts. I want enough stability that I can help the people who helped me, choose where I put my time without doing panic math every time, and sleep without running numbers in the dark.

I've thought about that since I was young: what it would feel like if rent and fear stopped steering so many decisions. I'm nowhere near the full picture, but the direction is about peace, not flex.

Until then I'm honest that worry still gets a vote. Naming that feels better than pretending I'm above it.

I still catch myself caring whether people online think my life looks impressive. I know it's thin. The feeling doesn't always listen.

I want the voices that matter to be the ones who've seen me tired, boring, wrong, and kind. Someday I hope my sense of self weighs more than whatever is trending, or than a number under a post.

The dream is small: this site, my email, a handful of threads that outlast any phase, and less performance in exchange for being known as a full person.

The people closest to me deserve attention that isn't scraped from the bottom of the barrel after I've already given the day away. They get patience I don't always deserve. I'm grateful for that.

I picture a life where home isn't only a place I crash between obligations—a table where conversations stretch, birthdays I don't half-remember, years that don't blur because I was never really there.

I'm not there yet. Saying it out loud is how I keep from acting like the tradeoffs don't cost anyone but me.