Asia, Bangkok, Featured, Life, Popular, Thailand

Visa Runs, Bankruptcy, and Unlikely Plot Twists

9 May

On May 18th, I’ll have been in Thailand for 90 days, so if you know anything about international travel and the dangers of overstaying your legal welcome, you know it’s time for me to make a visa run. Needless to say, I’ll be ducking out of Thailand just long enough to flirt with Cambodia’s temples and beaches, stamp my passport, and come back to the Land of Smiles like nothing happened… all so I can avoid getting intimately acquainted with the inside of a holding cell. Fun times!

To be blunt, this visa run couldn’t have come at a better time. I spent most of the first year of this adventure destination hopping every two months (Dallas > London > Manchester > Barcelona > Pyeongtaek > Barbados > Dallas > Colorado Springs > Bangkok), and to be honest, with what was going on in my regular reality, it got pretty draining, pretty quickly. Accordingly, when I decided to spend my next leg in Bangkok, I wanted to stay put for more than a few months so I could get settled, feel some sense of normalcy, and maybe even start building community.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to setting up my tripod to solo film content or take pictures to keep up with documenting this journey for the socials, lol.

But I do enjoy playing with angles and perspective, literally and figuratively.

And for the most part, I met those initial goals. I’ve found real consistency and progress in my routine, got clarity on a few things that have been holding me back, and met some amazing people along the way. But over the past month, I’ve started to slip back into the very patterns I’ve spent the last 14 months trying to break. Work, Gym, Repeat sounds like a solid mantra in theory, but in practice, it’s become too easy to just grind through my tasks, get a workout in, and then retreat to my apartment—alone—cycling through the same mental highs and lows I tried to leave back in the States.

While the result of several greater factors, the fallout from the startup’s failure last June continues to ripple through my life in unexpected and frustrating ways. As I’ve stepped back and really examined the relationships and circumstances that led me to that opportunity, I’ve also begun to see just how much damage the last few years have done, not just to my bank account, but to my decision-making skills, my ability to trust new situations, and even how I interact with people on a day-to-day basis.

And after nearly six months of deep reflection, I’ve come to a clear conclusion: it’s time to take this journey I’m already on, resetting my mental, physical, and financial health, even further.

Definitely missing my big babies…

…and my fur babies.

It’s time for a full life reset.

For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have any real responsibilities beyond my own survival. My son, who was my primary focus, motivator, and driving force for over twenty years, is doing FUCKING AMAZING on his own. He’s in school, working a job he enjoys, and has been in a healthy, loving relationship for over two years. He and his partner live together on the outskirts of Fort Worth, with our two dogs, his partner’s cat, and my plants… well, the ones that are still surviving, at least (a plant daddy my son is not). They’re out there truly doing life and doing it well. And while it stings to be so far removed, the peace it brings me to know he’s happy, loved, and thriving has given me the freedom, finally, to make decisions based on what’s best for me. Not for him, or for us, but for just lil ol’ me, and my life, and my dreams, and my aspirations.

I’m also not working multiple jobs and going to school, or running multiple businesses for the first time in twenty-plus years. I started a design freelancing business back in 2019, which I successfully grew until I decided to step away from it to focus on the startup. For the last few months, I’ve been slowly and deliberately rebuilding my business, carefully choosing how I build and the type of work I take on, in hopes to not repeat some of the same mistakes and setbacks I made the first time around. So, for the first time since 2019, I don’t have a million projects or edits or updates to do for clients or bosses or peers, instead taking on only the projects I enjoy or that serve a greater purpose other than simply getting a few bucks in the bank and paying yet another bill.

But I always manage to find fur babies…

…and sans fur babies on my adventures 🙂

So, what does a full life reset really mean? For me, it starts with finally acting on a desire that’s lived quietly rent-free in the background for years, but has just come into full focus within the past few months: I want to be a writer. Not just in my journal, not just on this blog, but a real, professional, paid writer who gets to talk about the things that matter and genuinely interest me. I’ve always been a good writer. Back in high school, I could knock out 10-page papers during homeroom the day they were due with barely any research or planning. And while I didn’t fully realize it at the time, creating The fuSHion Magazine, the award-winning sports and hip-hop magazine I launched what feels like a lifetime ago, was just another extension of that passion.

Now, six months into curating this blog, it finally clicked: I want to be a writer. No, I am a writer. And it’s time to start acting like one. So, in the last month I assembled writing samples, applied to gigs, and pitched to publications, hoping for at least an assignment, if not a full-blown opportunity. And as of literally this morning? I’ve been offered a paid contributing writer role at a publication with more than 4 million monthly readers. Like, what the hell? The power of action, moving on what moves you and how the universe chooses to acknowledge it, will never not astound me.

Step One: Complete.

I will forever be equally intrigued and perplexed by all that Bangkok has to offer… Condoms with your Cabbage, anyone?!

Another attempt at “content creation” LOL.

The next step brings us back to why I started writing this post in the first place: making the most of my necessary visa run. Sure, I could just fly out of Bangkok, stay a night somewhere, and come back the next day to reset my visa. But knowing my tendency to get “stuck” in monotony and routine, and considering how close I am to Cambodia (and more importantly, Angkor Wat, which I’ve wanted to see ever since Angelina Jolie-as-Lara Croft went hunting for the Triangle of Light), I’ve decided to turn this little expedition into something more meaningful.

So instead, I’m spending three weeks exploring the temples and tides of Cambodia while prioritizing writing and documenting what I discover along the way. And after that, I’ll spend a month in Jomtien, near Pattaya, Thailand. During these seven weeks, the goal is to reset the habits and routines that landed me in this rut to begin with.

I’ve deliberately chosen an apartment far outside the city, walking distance only to the local market and the beach, and started canceling my streaming subscriptions and loading up on real books (because I’ll never be a Kindle or Audible girlie). I want to spend more time immersed in words and stories, not the mindless drama and reality TV that have served as a release and guilty pleasure to this point. I’m also cutting back on social media exposure and setting clear daily intentions for meditation, stretching, writing, and exercise.

Forever a paperback warrior.

…and basic starbies bish.

By the end of this focused experiment, my hope is to have a stronger grip on my day-to-day routines and to finally break the habits that keep dragging me back into stagnation. Lastly, I’ll have to make a decision I’ve been dodging since October: whether or not to finally declare bankruptcy. But that, as they say, is a story for another day.

For now, I’ll end with something I’ve said here before: Losing everything means getting to start over however the fuck you want. And for the first time on this journey, I’m actually starting to believe that’s possible. Who knows, maybe I’ll find zen… or maybe I’ll just fuck around and do something wildly unhinged (again) strictly for the plot.

Either way, stay tuned… things are about to get juicy.