2022 didn’t feel like a year that started. It felt like I was already in the middle of something.
I was in India when it began, and I didn’t know when I would return to Vietnam. A lot of things that once felt stable were no longer the same.
A quick summary of my life at the end of 2022:
- Work: 2 sources
- Projects: 1 (Shanti, in progress)
- Goal: Ironman 70.3 (2023)
- Training: Cycling, Running, Swimming
- Travel: India → Vietnam (Hanoi, Ha Long, Ninh Binh, Hoi An)
- Home: Vietnam
- India: No place left to call home
- What did I learn?: Don’t stay in the background
The above summary tells a lot about where I am right now. What comes next is harder to put into a few lines.
Leaving India
I knew I had to go back to Vietnam, but I didn’t really think about what I was leaving behind until the last day.
For months, I had been focused on getting back. My wife was there, and life was waiting for me to return. But when it was finally time to leave, everything felt different.
Seeing my dad cry was something I wasn’t prepared for. I don’t remember seeing that before. My nephew running behind the cab, trying not to cry, was a bit too much to handle.
With my mom gone, things had already started to change. My dad had decided to move in with my sister. I cancelled my rental apartment, which had been my home since 2017. Around the same time, my dad sold his house.
It all happened quietly, but it changed something.
I no longer had a place in India that I could call home.
Between Two Lives
Coming back to Vietnam didn’t feel like returning to something familiar. The journey itself was long. First Mumbai to Delhi, then a flight to Hanoi, three days in a hotel room for quarantine, and then finally Da Nang. There was enough time in between all of this, but I don’t think I really processed anything.
I knew I was going back to my wife after six months, and that should have been enough, but it wasn’t. There was something else sitting with me the entire time. It wasn’t just sadness, it was harder to explain than that.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just going somewhere. I was also leaving something behind that I couldn’t return to. I had never felt that before, being happy to go back while at the same time carrying something heavy, not fully in India anymore and not fully back in Vietnam yet.
I had felt something similar once before, when I decided to leave architecture and start working on my own. At that time, I didn’t know what I was moving towards, only that I couldn’t stay where I was. This felt the same, but heavier.
Somewhere during that journey, another thought became clear. With my mom gone, the only person left with whom I could share everything without thinking was my wife, and that stayed with me.
Arriving in Da Nang
By the time I reached Da Nang, I was already carrying all of that with me. My wife and her family were there at the airport, and they had brought a cake. It should have been a simple, happy moment.
When my mother-in-law hugged me, I suddenly missed my mom. I kept thinking about the last time I hugged her, when I was in a hurry trying to get to the airport. I didn’t know that would be the last time, and that thought stayed with me.
It also made me notice something else. The way we live, always rushing, always chasing something, rarely being present in the moment.
Learning to Stay
Coming back didn’t mean things went back to normal. For some time, I had a hard time with my wife. It wasn’t about one thing, it was everything I was carrying inside.
There were moments where I felt guilty. I kept thinking that if I hadn’t married, maybe I could have been in India with my mom. That thought didn’t make sense, but it stayed and affected how I behaved. I became distant, sometimes cold, and at times insensitive.
There were moments where I thought we wouldn’t make it.
But that was also the point where things started to change. Even when I wasn’t being fair, she stayed. She didn’t react the way I would have. She avoided conflict, while I’ve always been someone who faces it directly, and that difference made me notice things I hadn’t seen before.
There were small things in her that reminded me of my mom. The way she cared, the way she focused on me, the way she was willing to adjust without making it a big deal.
At one point, when things were at their worst, we almost decided to end it. That was also the moment I understood something clearly. She was willing to give up everything and focus on us, in the same way my mom had always done for me and my siblings.
That moment didn’t fix everything instantly, but it changed how we saw each other. We moved past that phase, and in doing so, we connected better and understood each other in a way we hadn’t before.
Building Something of My Own
Somewhere in between all of this, I started looking at my own work differently. I had always had good personal websites, but since 2018, most of them were broken. At the same time, my life had changed a lot, living in Vietnam, traveling, getting married, and experiencing things worth documenting.
I didn’t want a portfolio anymore. I wanted a place to document life.
I looked at themes, but nothing felt right. Everything either felt too much or didn’t match what I had in mind. So I decided to build one myself and also offer it for free.
That’s how Shanti started.
When Family Came to Me
In August, my brother, his wife, and my niece came to Vietnam. This was the first time in years that I spent proper time with my brother, not as kids, but as adults.
We met in Hanoi and travelled together. Ha Long, Ninh Binh, my favorite café, the Ho Chi Minh museum, the prison museum, and then Hoi An, where I showed them the “Memories of Hoi An” show, which my sister-in-law really liked, before coming back to Da Nang.
Meeting my niece after so many years felt a bit strange at first. She’s almost as tall as me now, and the first hug felt awkward. But within an hour, it was like nothing had changed. She was still the same, smart, funny, and exactly how I remembered her.
That trip meant a lot. I got to show my brother the places I love, take my niece around on my bike, and see my wife connect with my family. It felt like two parts of my life finally coming together.
Signing up for Ironman 70.3
The idea of doing an Ironman had started in 2021 when I was in India. For most of my life, I preferred staying in the background. Even when I worked with well-known people, I avoided events and attention.
After my mom’s death, something shifted. I didn’t want to stay in that comfort zone anymore, and Ironman 70.3 felt like the right way to push myself.
So I got back into cycling, then into running, and for the first time in my life, I learned how to swim.
2022 didn’t give me answers. It just changed something in me.
For most of my life, I was comfortable staying in the background. This year made that harder to continue.
Somewhere along the way, I understood what my mom was for me. And now, without thinking about it, I’ve become that for someone else.
So 2023 has a race, projects to work on, and a marriage I’m not taking for granted.
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