A Lesson I Wish I Had Learned Earlier

If I could whisper one piece of wisdom to my younger self, it would be this: you don’t need to hold everything so tightly.

For much of my life, I believed I had to push harder, prove myself louder, or patch every broken thing until it looked whole again. The job, the relationship, the apartment, the very idea of who I thought I was supposed to be—I carried them all like heavy bags I couldn’t set down. And in doing so, I missed the gentler truth: some things are not meant to be clutched. Some things are meant to be released.

When I think back to the dramas of my dog, Sauli, I can still hear the scratch of her paws against the crate door, her determined whines echoing in the hallway. At the time, it felt like chaos. But in hindsight, she was teaching me something I resisted learning: freedom can’t be contained. You don’t solve freedom—you honor it.

The same was true with my old landlord. I remember the sharp click of her heels against the tile as she walked into my flat without warning, the air suddenly thick with her perfume and disapproval. I thought the lesson was about fighting her tooth and nail. But it wasn’t. It was about realizing when a door has closed and having the courage to walk through a new one. Buying a house wasn’t just real estate—it was the smell of fresh paint, the silence of my own walls, the simple sound of peace.

Love had its lessons too. Breadcrumb relationships always carried a certain hollowness—messages that buzzed on my phone at midnight but never led to morning plans, promises spoken with warmth but never followed by action. I can still picture myself sitting at cafes, staring at my untouched coffee, waiting for someone who would never show up. I thought my task was to “try harder.” I see now that the real wisdom was learning when to stop trying. To understand that crumbs will never become a meal, no matter how many you collect.

And then, there were the potholes—literal and figurative. I remember bumping along Indian roads after moving back from the U.S., dust clinging to my clothes, the smell of street-side chai mixing with diesel fumes. My head throbbed with migraines during wedding chaos; my saree clung damply to my skin in the humid monsoon air. Visa runs through Delhi meant coughing through layers of smog, while auto rides in Hyderabad offered bursts of spicy chaat smells at roadside stalls—tiny joys in the midst of endless waiting lines. Each one seemed like a detour. Yet each one nudged me closer to who I really am.

I wish I had learned earlier that falling into a pothole doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Sometimes it simply means you’ve been slowed down long enough to notice the view, to feel the air, to recognize what you’ve been carrying.

That’s really the thread running through my memoir, Life Decisions and Potholes. It’s not a book of answers—it’s a book of questions, stumbles, laughter, and quiet realizations. Because if life has taught me anything, it’s that wisdom doesn’t always arrive early. Sometimes it arrives exactly when you’re ready to hear it.

And maybe that’s the final lesson: it’s never too late to learn.

This is the story of my chaos, my pivots, my heartaches, and my laughter—if you’ve ever had life fall apart (and then laughed about it), this book’s for you.