If Someday is Now, What Next?

 

I have been a bit lazy with my writing lately, but a major life transition has been made more real as I clean out my Michigan residence. I had a remarkable first year living and working in Brazil, and I am looking forward to returning to my life, relationships, and routines in the tropics.

Currently, I am sitting in my almost-empty office in my almost-vacant house in Michigan, in the middle of a move that has become something much larger than a move. It is the clear closing of a chapter—or perhaps several chapters—and the realization that I have somehow arrived at “someday.”

Over the past week, I have thrown away or donated 51 years of accumulated life. Items that once seemed important because of the memories they held have been parted with, and surprisingly, it feels freeing. My baseball glove from 1982—gone. My massive tape (yes, tape) and CD collection from the 1980s and 1990s—gone. Countless items that probably could have been sold were instead given away because, quite honestly, I didn’t care enough to deal with them. The memories are worth keeping, but the stuff is not.

Living in Brazil for a year, thousands of miles away from my possessions in Michigan, taught me something obvious that I somehow missed for decades. I didn’t miss any of it while I was gone, and I don’t miss it now that it is gone. So much of what we keep is not because we need it, but because we have convinced ourselves that it represents something important about who we are.

Early this morning, while crunching numbers and thinking through the practical realities of selling a house, paying off loans, and planning for the future, I became unexpectedly emotional as I thought about my life now, my relationships, and my opportunities. The emotion caught me off guard because I was supposed to be thinking about mortgages, student loans, retirement accounts, and college tuition. Instead, I found myself thinking about people, experiences, and the life I have built over the past year. It turns out that after decades of working toward financial security, what matters most is not the money itself, but the opportunities it creates.

This past year has given me the opportunity to see new places, meet incredible people, and fully immerse myself in a language and culture that continue to challenge me every day. I have found a level of personal fulfillment that I did not know was possible. It has also felt like several years compressed into one. A year ago, I became the outsider again. I found myself trying to navigate daily life in a language I could not fully understand and learning that pointing at things and smiling is sometimes a perfectly acceptable communication strategy.

There have been moments that still feel a bit surreal. Standing on the beach in Rio de Janeiro with my daughter. Watching the sun set over Salvador with my girlfriend. Exploring neighborhoods, restaurants, and cities that, not long ago, were places I knew only from maps. Building friendships and relationships that I never anticipated. Finding myself genuinely happy in a place that was once a giant unknown.

Not all of the adventures were the kind that make it into photographs. Last month, I found myself in a hospital bed in Brazil, dealing with a health scare that forced me to slow down and think about some uncomfortable realities. It is amazing how quickly priorities come into focus when you are reminded that time is not unlimited.

Somewhere between the travel, the friendships, the professional challenges, the language lessons, the health scare, and the ordinary moments of daily life, Brazil stopped feeling like an assignment and started feeling like home. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I am already living a life that, for many years, existed only as a future possibility. I have somehow arrived at the “someday” I imagined but was never entirely sure existed. And now I find myself asking an unexpected question: What comes after someday?

Soon, I return to Brazil and the comfort of a life that now feels like home. There will be long weekends exploring new places and adventures with amazing people. There will also be plenty of moments where I continue to embarrass myself in Portuguese. After a year in Brazil, I am still nowhere near fluent, but each day brings a small victory.

Certainty is overrated. What matters is having the flexibility to follow opportunities when they appear and the wisdom to recognize what is truly important when they do. Maybe that is why I have been able to let go of so much lately. The question is no longer what I have accumulated. The question is what I want to do with the time, resources, and opportunities I have worked so hard to create.

I think the answer is pretty simple: spend time with people I care about, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep saying yes to opportunities that a younger version of myself might have talked himself out of. And perhaps spend a little time thinking about all of this while sitting on a beach in Brazil.

For years, I wondered whether someday would ever arrive. The funny thing is that it arrived so quietly that I almost missed it.