Mom i made it
04/06/2026
definition of success?
grew up wanting to be on a list.
Forbes 30 Under 30, specifically.
When the news said someone was the youngest person to raise a billion dollars, I took it personally.
Like they'd taken my spot.
I'm a numbers girl.
Ninety-five percent and up, gold medals in everything you could win one in.
My parents were proud in the specific way parents are proud when the proof is printable.
I still keep score.
Everything I do has a number attached, even the leisure.
Especially the leisure.
I know.
It's material for therapy.
So travel got a number too.
Countries.
Finite money, finite time — the math was simple: every trip is a new country, or it's inefficient.
You don't go back somewhere.
Going back is a wasted slot.
Then earlier this year I flew back to Thailand.
Not onward.
_Back._ A country already on the count.
By my own logic, a wasted slot.
I told myself I needed somewhere to assimilate before home.
The truth is I just wanted to.
I picked a sleepy beach town for retirees — a place people go to slow down, or stop.
The least-like-me decision available.
The evening it happened, I'd been diving.
Showered — the holy kind, where you feel the salt leave.
Took a Scoopy out with no destination, bought my orange coffee from the roadside shack, and walked.
Aimlessly, a word I don't get to use often.
Past a gutter, of all things, the beach opened up.
Busy everywhere else.
Here, nobody.
Sand, water, a few boats sitting still.
The best sunset I've ever seen, and I've stood in front of a lot of them.
Coffee sweating in my hand.
Two dives in me.
The light doing the thing.
I called my mom.
I said, "Mom, I made it."
That's the sentence.
The _exact_ one I'd been saving my whole life for the billion-dollar round.
I said it over a coffee that cost less than a dollar, on a beach I found by accident, past a gutter, having achieved — by every metric I've ever used on myself — nothing.
No number in this story.
A numbers girl told her mother she made it, and there's nothing to count.
/edited - v2
I grew up wanting to be on a list.
Forbes 30 Under 30, specifically.
When the news announced someone was the youngest person to raise a billion dollars, I took it personally.
Like they'd walked into my house and taken my spot off the mantel.
I'm a numbers girl.
Ninety-five percent and up, gold medals in every field they were handing out gold medals in.
My parents were proud in the specific way parents are proud when the proof is printable and framable.
I still keep score.
Everything I do has a number attached, even the leisure.
_Especially_ the leisure.
Yes, I have a spreadsheet for fun.
Yes, I know.
Yes, my future therapist and I will get to it.
So travel got a number too.
Countries.
Finite money, finite time - the math was simple and non-negotiable: every trip is a new country, or the trip is _inefficient._ You do not go back somewhere.
Going back is a wasted slot, and a wasted slot is basically a moral failing.
Then earlier this year I flew back to Thailand.
Not onward.
_Back._ A country already on the count.
By my own logic, a crime.
I told myself I needed somewhere to assimilate before going home, which is the kind of thing you say when the real reason is _I just wanted to_ and you can't file that under any known category.
I picked a sleepy beach town famous for retirees - people who go there to relax, slow down, or stop.
The least-me decision available on the menu.
I took it.
The evening it happened, I'd been diving.
Showered after - the holy kind of shower, where you can feel the salt leave and briefly believe you're a new person.
Took a Scoopy out with no destination, which for me is roughly as radical as skydiving.
Bought my orange coffee from the roadside shack - the one I'd made _customary_ in three days flat, because I turn everything into a routine, because a routine is a small number that says you belong here now.
Then I walked.
Aimlessly.
A word I get to use approximately never.
Past a gutter - genuinely, a gutter, the universe has no sense of staging - the beach opened up.
Busy everywhere else.
Here, nobody.
Sand, water, a few boats sitting still like they were also off the clock.
The best sunset I have ever seen, and I say that as someone who has stood in front of a professionally large number of sunsets.
Coffee sweating in my hand.
Two dives in me.
The light doing the thing.
I called my mom.
I said, "Mom, I made it."
That's the sentence.
The _exact_ one I'd been keeping in cold storage my whole life for the billion-dollar round.
The Forbes sentence.
I spent it on a coffee that cost less than a dollar, on a beach I found by accident, past a gutter, having achieved - by every metric I have ever used on myself - precisely nothing.
No number in this story.
A numbers girl told her mother she made it, and there's nothing to count.
Keep going.