A Different Carpe Diem
A Journey Back to the Present
I spent the last week of January in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
No, this won’t be like other Kaloramic posts. I worked indoors for most of the week, but in my brief time off I wandered through the cobbled streets of Old San Juan. It took me back to April 2021, my senior spring trip three years ago.
The group was comprised mainly of my senior year roommates plus a few close friends. During the week, we went snorkeling in Culebra, toured through Old San Juan, and relaxed in the waterfalls of El Yunque. In many ways it was a textbook spring break trip, but for us it felt like so much more.
With the grave health and economic effects of COVID, we lost the normal social lives that college kids typically lead. Instead of sentimental last hurrahs, our senior year was filled with Zoom classes, socially distanced hangouts, and many canceled trips.
Our trip to Puerto Rico, planned with cautious optimism, was our light at the end of the tunnel. After more than a year, we dared to step foot outside of continental U.S. We thought this would release our pent-up desire to “travel and be young,” but somewhere between the caves and the beaches we began planning our next trip.
Our Puerto Rico group became my core travel mates, and over the coming years I took full advantage of their diverse roots, and my privilege of disposable income and remote work. With this crew, I hiked through Yosemite, lost money in Vegas, hazardously motor-biked through pristine Koh Rong island, and marveled at the ancient temples of Angkor Wat.
I extended this carpe diem mentality to every group chat. In 2021-22, my family and I rode horses through Kashmir’s mountains, climbed high in Mexico’s hot air balloons, and lended our voices to the roars of Old Trafford stadium, Manchester (only one of these trips was forced by me, and not the one you’d think). I traveled to visit high school friends, and as I found a crew at McKinsey, I started traveling with them too.
In January 2022, my dad called me with bad news from India. I was heading to the airport, but instead of my round trip to California I took the next flight to Delhi. I sat reading next to my paternal grandfather a few hours before he passed away, and helped with the rituals afterwards. Despite the loss, I was profoundly grateful to have been there. It reinforced my desire to be everywhere, do everything, and live the most life I could. I took what Avicii said in “The Nights” and made it my mantra:
In January 2023 I started Kaloramic so I could share these journeys and find the threads of meaning between. And the year did not disappoint. I was fortunate to visit ten countries across four continents, live in very different parts of the U.S., and, of course, bike across the DMV.
2023 was an incredible year, but also an exhausting one. I spent too much time planning the next trip, ranging from weekend trips to cross-country moves, and figuring out how to optimize my time there. A body in motion stays in motion, but sometimes it forgets why it’s still in motion. (Was I subconsciously just looking for Kaloramic posts ideas? We’ll never know.) When I heard boygenius perform in Idaho last August, this lyric resonated:
“I am never anywhere, anywhere I go. When I’m home I’m never there, long enough to know.” — boygenius, “Ketchum, ID”
Like a wanderer returning home, I moved back to DC in December for a new role at The White House. I ended 2023 atop the peaks of Patagonia with Casey and Alyssa, the culmination of months of traveling (and rock climbing). As we landed into the New Year in Buenos Aires, with more memories and injured toes than I expected, I envisioned a different 2024.
This year, I want to focus my energy on the present. To take what I’ve learned from others’ roots and nurture my own in DC. To work hard in my role of helping disaster survivors access Federal benefits. To spend time with the friends next door. To know that there’s plenty of life to live in this timezone. To use my spare time not just to plan, but to appreciate the moment I’m in.
To, more literally, “seize the day.”
This is not the end of travels, but a brief pause. For better or worse I can't sit still, and soon enough I’ll tag along with another friend to visit another place I’ve never been. But for now, the only tickets I have booked are on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
So what does that mean for Kaloramic?
During the heat of college admissions essays many years ego, a counselor told me to either “do something worth writing about, or write something worth reading.” Admittedly much of Kaloramic has tried to be the former. This seems like a good time to try the latter.
More recently, my dear friend (and DMV bike-mate) Bobo challenged me to write about topics that aren’t obviously interesting. So, I hope to use the next series of posts to ground myself a bit more. I’ll share a bit about my family history, how it shapes me, and why I love bubble tea so much. These posts might not sound as wondrous, but if you’ll bear with me, I hope they are still worth the read.
Thank you to Samar Ahsan — a senior year housemate, a core travel mate, and someone who writes better travel blogs than I ever could — for her thoughtful review of this piece.