The Cost of Waiting for Others to Show Up

I arrived in Hanoi yesterday. Sitting in my apartment, I found myself thinking about how easily life can pass us by while we’re waiting for other people to show up.

I love traveling, especially traveling alone. It gave me a kind of freedom and confidence I didn’t know was possible, and it’s shaped the way I move through my life.

The first time I ever traveled alone was almost accidental. I wanted to go to Chicago as a graduation gift to myself. At the time, I asked my boyfriend if he wanted to join me. He wasn’t interested; the timing didn’t work for him. In true Sex and the City fashion, he was very much the “never left New York, didn’t see the point” type.

It was a bummer, but I booked the trip anyway.

What surprised me most wasn’t that he didn’t want to go. It was his surprise that I went without him. I remember the exchange clearly. He said something to the effect of, “But I told you I wasn’t going,” and I responded, “Yes, I heard you, so I booked a ticket for myself.” That stunned him.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight, that moment changed something in me. If I had waited for him to be ready, I wouldn’t have discovered the joy of navigating a new city alone, meeting strangers, finding my way through unfamiliar streets, and realizing that my life didn’t need to pause just because someone else opted out.

As my life went on, there were many more forks like that, each with greater consequence.

At seventeen, it was the decision between staying under my parents’ financial care, and therefore their control, or choosing freedom and independence without a clear path ahead.

At twenty, it was accepting a job in San Francisco when my entire life, my boyfriend, my community, everything familiar was rooted between New York and Connecticut. At the time, it felt like choosing upheaval over security.

In hindsight, I can see that what I was attached to was a comfort that contradicted who I was becoming.

Later came bigger departures.

Leaving Los Angeles at twenty-six, a city I loved deeply, to live out of a suitcase and travel.

Moving to Berlin at twenty-nine, fully aware it would take a toll, but trusting the experience would be worth it.

Then, at thirty-one, recognizing through many tears that Berlin had taken more than it gave, and moving to London to rebuild.

Eventually, I came to understand that staying fixed in one place comes in seasons for me, and that’s okay. Today, I’m once again living out of my suitcase, building my own business, and letting my life unfold in motion rather than in anticipation.

As I sit in my apartment in Hanoi, I think about the potential cost of not taking those decisions.

You could argue that I’ve chosen a lonelier path, one that sacrifices physical closeness. But it has also filtered for something far richer…relationships that are intentional, deep, and sustained by choice rather than proximity. People who actively choose to opt in to my life and whom I choose in return.

What feels far more tragic to me is the alternative: the cost of waiting for people to align with your life, when they may never show up in the way you hope.

In every place I passed through, I gained immeasurable perspective, experience, and connection I couldn’t have imagined beforehand. Some parts were hard. Some were expensive, emotionally and financially. Would I do it again? Without a doubt.

What I’ve noticed, though, is the discomfort this posture can create in others, especially friends, and more often partners. My refusal to pause my life for someone else can feel unsettling. What surprises me is how differently it’s received. In many cases, it’s a familiar way of moving through the world for men. When women take it on, it tends to provoke something more complicated. For me, it’s less about resisting a shared life and more about continuing to live mine while leaving room for someone to step in.

We often romanticize waiting. We convince ourselves to hold off for shared memories, for the right timing, for a future moment that will make everything worth it. Sometimes, that’s true. I find myself wondering when waiting stops being a choice and starts becoming a posture.

Especially among my female friends, I see how often women deny themselves in the service of a relationship, a partner’s potential, or a moment that may never arrive. We talk about waiting as if it’s proof of love. I’m not sure it is.

Love, at least as I understand it, wants the other person to live fully, with or without your presence.

The question I want to leave you with is this: what could life look like if we showed up for ourselves first and left room for others to opt in along the way?