I set fire to my life and got a one way ticket to Sri Lanka in January 2024

I snapped a photo leaving American soil in Boston and didn’t realize it was the real beginning. One last shoreline, winter trees, the plane lifting away, clouds in the window like a row of tiny moons. It didn’t feel dramatic. It didn’t feel like I was changing my life. It just felt like I was getting on a plane.

But I was leaving everything I had built. Eighteen years in a business that was never mine. A life that looked stable on paper but never fully felt like it belonged to me. I didn’t blow it up overnight, but I also didn’t stop it from collapsing when it started to crack. So I bought a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka.

I flew Etihad Airways and for the first time in a long time, I felt taken care of. The flight was calm, intentional, almost surreal. Somewhere over the ocean, I realized how rare it is to feel like a guest instead of a burden.

Then I landed in Colombo with no return ticket. That didn’t go over well at immigration. I tried to explain—about Lahiru, about timing, about how I just needed to go. It sounded just as irrational out loud as it did in my head, but somehow I got through. And just like that, I was there.

What I thought the trip would be and what it actually became are two completely different things. I thought I was going for a person. I thought I was chasing a feeling. I thought I needed answers. But the last ten days I stayed by the ocean alone. No plans, no pressure, no trying to figure anything out. I walked the beach, collected seashells, and let the days pass without forcing them into something meaningful. That’s where I found the closest thing to peace I’ve felt in a long time.

I came back to North Carolina after 26 hours of travel, straight into carpool lines, grocery stores, and a life that looks exactly the same on the outside, but I’m not the same. I blew my life up, whether I meant to or not, and now I’m back trying to understand what comes next. This is where I’m going to start sharing it—the real version, not the polished one. What actually happened, what I learned, and how astrology and real life started to connect in a way I can’t ignore anymore.