Taking risks, processing loss, and the fall of new beginnings

T/W: mentions of depression, loss, self-harm, suicidal ideation

Tears fell from beneath my warped, Drug Mart sunglasses and pooled with the sweat stains on my shirt as I dragged myself through the airport last Tuesday morning.

Three days, four subways, two Ubers, one cancelled flight, and another delayed and diverted: that’s the best summary I can give for my past week. My final few days of summer are usually spent in deep reflection as I prepare for the semester ahead. This time around, I was lugging a body bag of a backpack through Paris and arguing over the phone with a stream of customer service agents. On Tuesday, I cried outside a metro station while sharing a baguette with the woman who lived on the bench. On Wednesday, stranded in New York City, I briefly wondered if I would become the one sleeping on the streets. All that and more happened in the span of 72 hours.

Once upon a time, that level of chaos would’ve sent me into a depressive episode—if I’d even had the confidence to solo-travel to Paris in the first place. Truthfully, there were several moments last week that had me in a delicate limbo with my emotions. But as I reflect on the end of my summer, I feel at peace with it.

In May, I ended my winter semester determined to make the months ahead into “a season of spontaneity.” Having regained my footing after an 18-month depressive episode, I wanted to enjoy break before beginning the hunt for a junior-year internship. I was going to put myself out there: work a new job, meet new friends, start a personal blog. My adventures gave me countless 'firsts,' even bringing me to some of the world’s biggest cities: Tokyo, NYC, Paris.

Sometimes, taking risks will reward you with the best memories of your life. Other times, they’ll leave you in a foreign airport, crying ugly tears to the Boomer with cigarette breath behind the ticket counter. Mine gave me both.

I think that’s a trade-off worth accepting.

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I’m no stranger to crying in public.

In fact, I’m kind of an expert. I’ve had sob sessions in restaurants, bathroom stalls, taxi cabs, swimming pools, and even on the front steps of my business school. In one of my lowest moments last fall, I broke down in an Uber while surrounded by my entire family. Parents, brother, grandparents, cousins. Losing your dignity in front of everyone you love is mortifying. And as someone who has struggled with self-harm and suicidal ideation, that moment only fed the red-horned devil in my mind.

In December, a tragedy in my personal life forced me to think about mortality from a different lens. Losing a loved one is a feeling too terrible to put into words. But losing a loved when you’ve considered the prospect of nonexistence yourself—that’s another kicker entirely. The passing of my relative brought about a selfish kind of pain; it wasn’t only her body that I saw, but mine. The tears of her mother were the tears of my mother. The stillness of her house followed me into my bedroom’s walls. A million times over, I thought about the things I should have done differently. Hug her tighter, text her sooner.

I wish I could have held my cousin’s hand on that December day. I would have told her about the time when I, too, stood at the crossroad between Hell and nonexistence. About how, in my darkest hour, I could not see an exit beyond the obvious. About how I continued on, trudging through Hell even as my demons howled for me to stop—because for as hard as it might have been to imagine peace, I held hope tight to my chest. Hope that one day, Hell would yield.

Living through the aftermath of her death forced me, for the first time in a long time, to look beyond my microcosm of depression and think about the bigger picture. In the weeks that followed, I kept circling back to the same thought: if her life could vanish so quickly, what did that mean for mine? For all of ours? That grief cracked something open, forcing me to zoom out from my private battles and see the fragility—and miracle—of existence itself. Because what are we, really? A rare evolution of consciousness born from a speck of dust? Put in perspective of the entire universe, to live a human life is to live a 100-year miracle. What is another day, or month, or year in Hell for the chance to traverse beyond its purgatory? To share one more laugh with a best friend, to give one more hug to our parents. That missed flight, that failed exam, that sting of rejection… Maybe they aren’t that deep. Maybe life can be about something more.

In the troughs of my depression, I’ve mourned for the sentence continued when intended to end. In my lighter hours, I’ve realized that perseverance takes courage, strength, and a pain tolerance that I wish no being to ever require. Now, survival is my coup d'état. An overthrow of the demons that once ruled me. I live for those who cannot, and I refuse to see my happiness as a finite resource because of my disability.

Taking risks doesn’t just mean booking a last-minute flight or striking up conversations with strangers; it also means telling the truth about my depression, refusing to compartmentalize and letting others see me in my most vulnerable forms. Spontaneity in action and authenticity in spirit: they’re two sides of the same gamble. Strangers are often taken aback by how straightforward I am, happy to detail my biggest flaws, worst mistakes, and most personal struggles within minutes of meeting. My rationale is simple: I've wasted far too much time on compartmentalization. Authenticity is my atonement. I'll promise to be the most loyal friend, the most supportive cheerleader, the hardest worker—but in exchange, anyone who choses to be in my life has to be able to accept me for who I am in my highest and my lowest moments.

Once upon a time, I counted my tearless spells like a factory counts days without accidents, displaying them proudly on my mental wall. Now, when I think back to that Uber ride, I don’t give a damn. When you’ve stared down death, then seen someone else take the bullet, few things are deep enough to rattle you. Travel solo to Paris, go on a date with a stranger, broadcast that time I almost failed a class on the internet. The stakes don’t feel quite so high anymore.

Health, wealth, relationships; these are levers to happiness, perhaps with reasonable minimum baselines that a happy person must obtain. But once those are met, we must focus on the more abstract. Heart. Soul. Mind. To know our values, to make space for beauty, to live authentically so long as we are also being kind and good to the world around us. I think these are the things that really matter. If I have to take a few risks to get there? Small potatoes.

Sometimes hesitation can be healthy. But wait too long and you’ll spend more time in your head than experiencing the world outside of it. That is the rationale that drove me to take risks and live unfiltered this summer. And that’s the rationale that keeps me taking them.

As students across the country return to college this week, my summer of spontaneity is ending. In its place, I’m theming autumn, “the fall of new beginnings.”

In a sense, I mean this literally. The leaves will change; the weather will shift. But fall also carries the shadow of collapse. New beginnings don’t arrive without their stumbles; risks don’t come without their tears. And yet, every collapse makes space for something sturdier to grow in its place. And when the novelty of a beginning fades away, when we persevere through that anxiety and trepidation, we’re likely to find someone more beautiful standing in its wake. Not a perfect, polished person, but a truer one. Less filtered and less afraid.

So yeah, I had a crazy summer. And yeah, I spent the past week crying in an airport.

You know what?

No regrets. If that’s the cost of building a better self, I’ll keep paying it. I’d rather live imperfectly than waste one more moment on shame.

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