It has been a while since I posted or wrote anything properly. In fact, I wrote this before my Raising Kanan review. Maybe it has been writer’s block. Maybe the motivation I had at the beginning of the year has dipped a little. But even with that, I haven’t stopped thinking – or reapproaching how I want to do things with my life.

Looking back at my thirty years of life, I can’t help but feel that there has to be more to life than what it is for me currently. I feel like I’ve been stuck in a cycle – an endless loop. Being healthy, falling off, slipping into a bad place, dealing with flare-ups and chronic pain, being in more pain than usual and unable to do anything remotely productive, then finding new motivation to tackle the day… only to repeat it all over again.

I watch my parents still going to work in their late 50s and early 60s, and I find myself thinking: this can’t be all life is about. The idea of working all the way until I’m 60+ genuinely weighs on me. I don’t want that to be my future. My main aim in life is simple: I want to be free. Free from all of it. From everything. From everyone.

When I say everything, I mean the shackles that hold us down because of societal norms – the expectations, the routine, the invisible rules we follow without ever questioning why. When I say all of it, I mean being able to live life without worry, whether financially or in any other aspect of my life.

When I say everyone, I don’t mean that I want to abandon the people I love or live a life without meaningful relationships.  I mean that I want to be free from other people’s expectations of who I should be, what I should do, and how I should live. Free from those who consciously or unconsciously hold me in place because my growth makes them uncomfortable. Free from needing approval, from constantly explaining myself, and from shrinking who I am to make other people feel secure.

I want the freedom to choose my own path without guilt. To outgrow people, places and versions of myself that no longer serve me. To build a life that feels like mine, not shaped by fear, obligation, or somebody else’s idea of what my life should look like.

It’s funny, “I want to be free. Free from all of it.” That line is from Snowfall. Franklin Saint said it in the very first episode… and then again in the very last. That line stuck with me. Because when he first said it, I understood it one way. The ambition. The hunger. The desire to rise above your circumstances and build something bigger.

But when he said it at the end, it hit differently because he was technically free — just not in the way he had imagined for himself. He went from being on top to hitting rock bottom, becoming an alcoholic like his father before him. Yet somehow, even in that rock bottom, there was still a strange sense of freedom.

That is what stayed with me. It stayed with me because it makes you question: what is freedom, really? Is it having everything? Or is it having nothing left to lose? Is it control? Or is it release? I don’t think I have the answer yet.

But I do know this: whatever version of freedom I’m chasing, it can’t look like this cycle. It can’t feel like being trapped in the same pattern, surviving one phase only to be pulled back into the next. Maybe freedom isn’t something you suddenly arrive at. Maybe it is something you build slowly – through the choices you make, the people you keep close, the habits you refuse to return to, and the life you decide you deserve. Maybe it is less about escaping everything, and more about becoming someone who no longer needs permission to live differently.

As I am writing this, I’m sitting on the balcony of my hotel room in the Dominican Republic. I’m out here with my cousin and our friend who is more like a sister to us. Something that wouldn’t be possible without him. He had a partnership with a brand and brought us along with him (shout out to you, cuz, I appreciate you for real). He didn’t need to do that, but I am forever grateful that he did. I needed this more than anyone could ever know.

Moments like this make me stop and reflect. Not just on where I am physically, but where I am in life in general… because this right here feels like a glimpse of the freedom I’m talking about. The ability to experience life, to step away from routine, to just be.

More than anything, this experience has made me grateful for the people I have around me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more intentional about the relationships I invest in. I value being around people who genuinely want to see one another grow – people who inspire, encourage, and support each other through both the good moments and the difficult ones.

Seeing the people I care about pursue their goals doesn’t make me feel behind; it reminds me of what is possible and motivates me to keep moving forward too.

I know one trip won’t suddenly fix everything. I’ll go home, the routine will return, and there still will be difficult days. My health won’t transform overnight, my worries won’t disappear, and I won’t have every answer waiting for me when I step off the plane. But something in me feels different. For the first time in a while, I’m not only thinking about the life I want – I can actually see it.

Maybe that is where freedom begins. Not with having everything figured out, but with finally believing that your life can become more than the cycle you have grown accustomed to, with recognising moments that make you feel alive and deciding that you deserve more of them.

A few weeks ago, I was at shisha with a couple of friends when we asked each other, “What would you like to see for yourself in the next year of your life?”

We all answered, but the question has stayed with me ever since. We’re all about to turn 31, and being asked that put me on the spot. It forced me to say what I wanted for myself out loud, without giving my doubts the chance to silence me first.

I needed that.

Maybe writing this is another way of doing the same thing – putting what I want into words and holding myself accountable for building it.

I may not know exactly what freedom looks like for me yet, but I know what it feels like. It feels like peace. It feels like possibility. It feels like being surrounded by people who genuinely want to see me grow. It feels like sitting on a balcony in the Dominican Republic and remembering that there is still so much life beyond the pain, the routine and the version of myself I have been trying to escape.

So, what would I like to see for myself in the next year of my life? A life that feels more like my own. A life I don’t constantly feel the need to escape from.  A life where freedom is no longer something I only experience in glimpses.

For too long, I have been waiting for my life to change before allowing myself to truly live it. I’m not waiting anymore. Freedom isn’t something I expect the world to hand me. It is something I’m going to build – one decision, one risk and one day at a time.

And by the time I’m asked that question again, I want to be able to say that I didn’t just imagine a different life for that year. I finally started living it.