The universe nudge me, and I decided, this is it

I was confused. I was desperate. It took me days to finally buy that flight ticket. I kept going back and forth, hesitating, but deep down I knew I needed to. The day I pressed the purchase button, the uneasiness was still weighing heavily on me. I didn’t know what it was or why it was there — but I knew one thing: I needed this trip. I needed to go. I needed to be out there. So I did.

I waited for everything at the very last minute. The hotel was booked at the last minute, the laundry was done at the last minute, and the backpack was packed at the last minute. Transport to the airport was booked at the last minute. Everything is done at the last minute. I don’t even have plans on where I should go once I reach my destination. What to expect. What to prepare. What to think. None.

All I knew by that time was that I just needed to get out of here or else I would be super crazy and wouldn’t come out of my room anymore.

Once I reached the airport, I started to ignore my feelings. Trying to mask it with the usual feelings I had whenever I traveled before. But I didn’t reach those feelings. In the middle of that chaos, I chose to focus on one thing. Still. I choose to stay still. Make my mind quiet. Silence. Stay. And still.

And then I was on the plane. Just under two hours later, I landed, still carrying the uneasiness with me like extra baggage I hadn’t paid for.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that this trip wasn’t about sightseeing or ticking things off a list. It wasn’t about museums, food, or markets — though I touched all of those things. This trip was about me being cracked open.

I had moments of being scammed, moments of laughing until my stomach hurt, moments of being soaked in the rain, moments of lying in bed sick and feeling someone had quietly placed medicine by my pillow. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t even comfortable. But it was real.

The scams tested me. They made me angry, embarrassed, and guilty for wasting money. But they also forced me to adjust, to budget harder, to remind myself: money will come and go, but this moment is here now.

vomit of words

It was the monsoon season when I arrived there. The rain slowed me down. It kept me trapped in cafes, watching life blur past in wet streets, giving me hours to write and to think. And then inspiration struck. I open my journal and start to write like I vomit words. 2 pages long of everything that’s disturbing my mind. Of all the what ifs and what could and what will. For a second, I am glad I brought my journal this time. I realized how long I had been holding it in, how I’d been starving for quiet, for a pause.

The sickness broke me. Fever, cough, vomiting — all of it hit like a truck and left me raw. My body turned against me: hot, then shaking, then aching in places I didn’t know could ache. I remember leaning over the bathroom sink, coughing until my stomach felt like it would rip, feeling ridiculous and terrified and so, so alone. I kept thinking, don’t die, just don’t die, which sounds dramatic, but that tiny panicked voice is real when your throat closes and you can’t catch a breath. There’s this weird shame in being sick when you’re supposed to be having an adventure — like you failed the whole point of the trip — and that shame makes you curl inward until you’re a tiny, embarrassed version of yourself.

stranger kindness

And then — small, quiet things happened that I did not expect. Lozenges. A packet was placed beside my pillow like a tiny, anonymous prayer. I opened my eyes in the middle of a coughing fit and saw them there, and my chest unclenched for the first time that night. It was such a small gesture, and yet it felt enormous. Who leaves medicine for someone they barely know? Who thinks about another person in the middle of their own illness and city-hopping life? The act cut right through my bristly embarrassment and landed on me like a hand on my shoulder: I am seen. I am not completely, horribly alone.

There was the rooftop bar where I went out because I didn’t want to be trapped inside by my own head. I remember the air up there — half open, slightly cool, with music and smoke and people pretending everything was normal. Then my cough erupted, and it was humiliating and scary all at once. I ran out to the edge to breathe, and he came out too. He didn’t make a big show. He didn’t hover with pity or drama. He just stayed. He didn’t leave me to be the person people laugh about in the morning — he stood there, quiet, steady, as if my breathing mattered more than the rest of the night. That presence — ordinary, not performative — felt like a lifeline. It wasn’t romance or heroics; it was reliability. It said, in the smallest voice possible, I’ve got you for now.

Feeling cared for like that makes you soft and defensive at the same time. Soft because someone chose to make space for your mess; defensive because part of you keeps screaming you should be able to handle your own shit. There’s guilt, too — like, why should someone go out of their way for me when I can’t even reciprocate right then? I worried I was being needy or dramatic. I worried about boundaries and if I was misreading kindness for something else. But underneath all that jittery skepticism was this simple, stubborn heat: gratitude. Grief, even. Because to be held — even by a stranger — in my weakest felt like being given permission to be human without performance.

That care rearranged my internal script. I’d been running on this silent rule that vulnerability equals weakness, that needing people is a liability. But being sick and being cared for cracked that open. It showed me that dependence isn’t failure — sometimes it’s a bridge. It’s how people connect. It’s how trust is built, in tiny increments: a lozenge, a cup of tea, a text asking if you’re okay. Those little things started to stack into a surprising truth: I don’t always have to be the one who carries everything. Letting someone else carry a piece of me, even briefly, felt like reclaiming energy for things I actually wanted to do.

And emotionally? It was messy. I felt fiercely grateful and embarrassingly vulnerable and suspicious of my own feelings all at once. I wanted to crawl into a hole, and I also wanted to sit next to him and talk until dawn. I felt childish and grown-up, scared and emboldened. That paradox — wanting both to be alone and to be held — is ugly and honest and human. It made me see how fragile a connection can be, how tender it is when people choose you in your worst. It also made me realize care can be simple and radical at the same time. It doesn’t need fanfare. It just needs someone to show up.

Most of all, getting sick and being looked after showed me a different kind of courage: the courage to be seen when you’re not at your best. There’s power in that acceptance — in letting people witness your ugly, coughing, unglamorous self and still stay. That kind of witnessing rewired something in me. It loosened the edges I’d been sharpening for protection and made me believe maybe — just maybe — the world is less hostile than my fears said. Maybe people will meet me halfway. Maybe I don’t have to do everything alone. Vulnerability didn’t ruin me; it opened a door. And whatever I do next, that door is staying ajar.

And the people — oh, the people. Hostel strangers who became friends overnight. We drank together, laughed in streets lit up with neon, stumbled back at sunrise with kebabs in our hands. We shared stories of our childhoods, our heartbreaks, our hopes. And in their words, I saw mirrors. They were doing the things I thought were impossible — quitting, traveling, starting fresh — and they weren’t superheroes. They were just human, like me. It made me realize I wasn’t behind. I wasn’t small. I wasn’t incapable. I was just… not stepping out yet.

Oh, and there is this moment where I have hours of conversation with this Indonesian girl I just met in my hostel. She has less than what I have now, but she believes in herself and takes the leap of faith in her life. Knowing that she didn’t know what’s next, but she knows that living in cages won’t make her grow. She didn’t speak to inspire; she was speaking the truth. Unknowingly saying things that I really needed.

This trip, I met lots of inspiring people. As if the universe wants to show me that there are a lot of people out there who do what I’m about to do. It won’t be easy, but it is doable. It’s not just something that is hard to reach; it is there, waiting to be picked.

Most of the people I met are around my age. Some have better circumstances than I, some have less than what I have currently, and some are just what others call faith. Faith in their own self. Faith that anything that happens can be done beautifully. Faith that uncertainty is not being blind, but by trusting your own self, that you can make it. Faith that you don’t need a safety mattress to take risks because there is no guarantee in everything we do in our lives, and it does not make it unworthy, but it makes it living. Living the life.

I realize whenever people ask me what I’m doing in HCMC, I said I’m here to connect. Because that is what I feel. I don’t go to many tourist places. I don’t feel the need to check on the checklist. Somehow, HCMC brings me people that I need. Answers that I need. Questions that have answers with it. I learn years’ worth of answers on this trip. As if the universe asked me to go and trust him. Trust him that the life that I wanted is there and waiting for me. Trust that every step of unknowing, somehow along the road, there will be an answer. There will be clarity.

That realization terrified me and freed me at the same time.

people, rain and thoughts

Because somewhere between the scams, the rain, the fever, and the laughter, I understood something: I didn’t come here to fall in love with a city. I came here to reconnect with myself.

And the moment it all crystallized was at the airport, on my way home. I was sitting there with my backpack, waiting to board, and suddenly I saw it. Clearer than ever before. I, with a one-way ticket. Waving to my mom and brother at the airport. Carrying nothing but my backpack, leaving Malaysia not for a trip but for a life. The world is my home. I saw it, and I cried. Not because I was sad, but because I finally believed it was possible.

That vision both strengthened me and frightened me. Strengthened, because I knew what I wanted. Frightened, because it meant I could no longer pretend I didn’t know. It meant I had to choose — stay safe in my corporate life, or risk everything to follow that vision.

And for once, the thought of risk didn’t paralyze me. Because what’s the worst that could happen? I run out of money, I come home, I find another job. Life goes on. But if I don’t try, if I don’t listen to that vision, the regret will eat me alive.

That’s what this trip gave me. Not beautiful photos, not a list of landmarks, but clarity. The kind that cracks you open in the middle of the chaos. The kind that makes you cry at the gate before your flight boards. The kind that reminds you: ready won’t come. But regret will.

And I know now — I can’t keep living in circles, waiting for ready. My heart is already at the airport, one-way ticket in hand.

If you’ve made it this far, you might want to read this too: I Can See The Life I Want - Now I'm Giving Myself A Year To Reach It