When doing everything right feels wrong.

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I used to love checklists.
I loved the certainty of them.
The way a tick could turn effort into proof.

I’d been trained for this long before spreadsheets, learning silence as a performer.

Master’s degree: done.
Job title: presentable.
Promotion: done.
Visas in different countries: approved.
LinkedIn summary: glowing.

On paper, I was doing everything right.

From the outside, it looked like I’d accomplished life.
Left home. Became an expat.
The kind of story that photographs well.

When I briefly went back, I carried that overseas glow.
Proof that leaving worked.

At home, people asked the same questions in different fonts:
Are you settled yet?
When are you coming back for good?
So… what’s next?

I smiled through all of it.
Nodded like someone with a plan.

Inside, I couldn’t tell if I was ahead
or just very far away from myself.

I remember when the California visa arrived.
That gold-star moment.

The thick envelope.
The official seal.
My name printed cleanly, unmistakably approved.

I didn’t breathe it in.
I didn’t call a friend.
I didn’t let my body register what had just happened.

I opened a new spreadsheet.

Things to close.
Things to pack.
Things to optimise.

No joy.
No pause.
Just momentum to conceal the numbness.

The checklist never ran out.

I was so busy collecting gold stars
I forgot to check if I wanted them.

I wasn’t chasing a life.
I was chasing the safety of being correct.

So I started crossing off things
that were never mine to carry.

Other people’s timelines.
Inherited definitions of “making it.”
The need to be easily understood at a dinner party.

Now, the markers are quieter.

Am I breathing fully?
Do I feel present in my body?
Does this choice bring me closer to myself
or further away?

It’s messier.
It doesn’t photograph well.

It’s a terrible LinkedIn update.

But it’s mine.