🏝️ Two Years of Hawaii as my Happy Home

Letter 165

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Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Honolulu, Hawaii ☀️

Happy Fifth of July folks!

I’ve got to get something off my chest. It feels contentious to celebrate the United States’ independence while I am currently living in Hawaii. A place that was stripped of its own independence for US gain in 1959. And I wouldn’t be able to live here if that didn’t happen.

Many have many opinions about this topic. I don’t want to be ignorant of this truth.

Anywho, I started my Fourth of July off sitting on the plush couch of my therapist, instead of shotgunning a beer at a sandbar like I used to. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that stark contrast. Twenty-four-year-old Jen would’ve never guessed that. After crying some with my therapist, my friend Sara called me up and I hopped on a catamaran to snorkel with sea turtles and then got doused on a parasail. I ate a hot dog for lunch, and a cheeseburger for dinner— the most meat I’ve eaten in a day in a couple of years. I felt like one helluva American. It was an epic day.

pre getting doused on the way back down. I loved feeling HI on this HI life

Now, let’s dive into letter 165 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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❓Question to think about

What’s it been like living in Hawaii for these past two years?

🖊️Writing

I thought that I should have liked living outside of Detroit, Michigan. I love and care for my family there. My parents have lived happily there their whole entire lives. I appreciate how Michigan shaped me into who I am today, but it felt too small, homogeneous, and comfortable. I felt like my growth was stifled, with minimal curiosity and my beliefs weren’t expanding. 

I thought that I should like living in a hustling and bustling city like Chicago, Illinois. I finally made it and landed on the seventh floor of the Willis Tower in the heart of downtown as a project manager for a management consulting company. I love making connections and meeting people from everywhere. However, I still felt like I wasn't being challenged in the ways I wanted. I was still too comfortable in all my pre-existing social bubbles of family members, high school friends, college friends, and work friends. The oppressive sound of the L train outside my dark alley window made me feel like I was being suffocated, and my spirit of adventure felt like it was being drained of possibilities. Chicago felt too noisy and busy. 

Along the planned narrative of life, I thought that I should have fallen in love by now being a 27-year-old. I have after all. 

I have fallen in love with the place I’ve lived these past two years – Hawaii. 

Originally, I thought that Hawaii would provide me with a little break from reality to escape. I craved adventure and perspective after my life was a quarter over at age 25. My trip to Hawaii was supposed to be for a mere two months for a project, but it’s turned into two years and beyond.

I am grateful to have stumbled upon this place.

Much of the happiness I have in my life today is because of this place and its people that have become my community. Here’s a formula I’ve realized:

1. Taking action →

2. Courage to take more action →

3. Confidence to be authentic →

4. Deeper connection →

5. More joy and happiness than I could have ever imagined

Ten courageous experiences in Hawaii that I am grateful for over the past two years (each one could probably be its own letter):

1. Understanding what meaningful friendship is. This started with first admitting that I had no real life friends because my transient hostel ones didn’t count. Next, I needed to find friends by approaching people. I did this in bookstores, at surf breaks, on volleyball courts, on Instagram DMs, and on the Bumble BFF app. After I found these folks, I started to learn about how to nurture them with clear communication, thoughtful follow-ups, and experiences together on shared interests. 

2. Investing in myself for a four-month sabbatical. It was September 2021 and I was burnt out from my job which required me to live in the aforementioned hostel. I decided to attempt to un-structure my life and rejuvenate myself with things I was intrinsically motivated by. This turned into me starting a bunch of hobbies, learning to surface “Grandma Jen” parts and an obsession with creative writing while reading Julia Cameron’s Walking in this World like my Bible every morning. 

3. Blowing up all limiting beliefs that I am weak. Believe it or not, I was never much of a serious athlete before Hawaii and that was something I wanted to change. I’ve competed in and finished three competitive fitness events: Kona Coffee Half Marathon in November 2021, Turtle Bay Sprint Triathlon in November 2022, and Honolulu Olympic Triathlon in May 2023. I bought a road bike and rode on two of the higher mountain ranges in Hawaii: Koʻolau on Oahu (42 miles & 3,000 feet) and Haleakalā on Maui (46 miles & 6,220 ft).

4. Embracing my obsession with journaling. In the past, I used to be quite shy about journaling with new people because I thought it was weird and they’d judge me for loving my childish diary. Since embracing it, I have had beautiful friendships blossom off of this practice of writing thoughts, feelings, and dreams in a notebook. It filters for a niche subset of nerds who are reflective and self-aware. My favorite. One of my closest friendships today took off after we were both jazzed about journaling. We took shooters of oysters together (begrudgingly) and the rest was history. We moved in together the next day. Gifting and teaching friends, coworkers, middle schoolers, and neighbors to start a journaling practice to live more intentional lives has been one of the most joyous pursuits that light me up.

5. Finding and inventing my own job from a Twitter DM. On March 15th, 2022 I went to a full moon manifestation circle, wrote, and spoke out my intimate desires for the next month to a circle of strangers. Thirty days later I had a contract in hand with a job with my now friend and boss to lead a community and marketing efforts to launch a journal. For a year and three months, I have been supporting the local small business called Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha. Currently, I am editing and creating a book product that I am *stoked* about that will be Hawaii visitor’s go-to guidebook to Pure Aloha coming in hot at the end of this year. 

6. Becoming more comfortable in nature. I’ve learned to confidently put up a tent after venturing off into the wild backpacking on three different several-night Kauai and Big Island trips. This meant not looking in a mirror, learning how to use a poop shovel, and having dirt under my nail beds for days. I’ve learned to respect the ocean after my near-death drowning experience in Makapu’u tidepools. I’ve gone skinny dipping multiple times, though never enough. Sure, this makes me, like, sort of a hippie, but nudity is way too shameful. It’s just a body. Why do we need to make this so weird? 

7. Starting new hobbies and modes of transport. They include: playing uke, photography, beach volleyball, surfing, hiking, singing, collaging, yoga, scuba diving, free diving, moped driving, singing, chicken watching, acro yoga, road biking, and open water swimming. I’m still barely competent at most of these, though let me reinforce: I cannot state enough how much I love taking joy rides on my moped Qiao, which I impulsively bought for $800 from a friend of a friend named Qiao. (Yes, I know a very original story to the name). If I’m ever down in the dumps, a cruise with Qiao will usually lift my spirits, at least partially, if not more. 

8. Leaning into my spiritual side. This has included the aforementioned full moon ceremonies to figure out what I desire in my life. I also stumbled upon the Diamond Sangha in October 2021 and have been an active member exploring my zen practice ever since on Wednesday evenings for two-hour sits. This has led to completing two zen seshins. I still have not read a book on Zen Buddhism nor identify as a Buddhist since labels feel confining and demolish open exploration, but this practice of finding my way has served me more than any other. I have sat on that medium-toned hardwood floor for hours, adding to weeks of my life. While clothed in black, I have gone without speaking a single word to most of the people in that Zen Center for years. It is mostly silent, apart from the meowing temple cat and ambient rain sounds. It’s totally bizarre—I’ve never had this form of speechless connection with people before.

9. Exploring romance and dating more seriously for the first time in my life. It’s been adventuresome. There have been some high points, mainly some learnings of my preferences. It’s hurt to be ghosted. It’s also hurt to pursue a relationship, realize we were on different pages, and initiate the breakup for the first time. I’m kind of a boob; whenever someone cries, my waterworks start too.

10. Coming clean with how I am actually feeling without numbing and hiding. I cannot recall ever expressing aloud to anyone pre-Hawaii that I was happy in response to “How are you doing?” It sounded braggadocios to share that I was happy because a belief formed that genuine happiness wasn’t possible for me. But now that I am actually allowing myself to express and feel things, I feel infinite with possibilities of what can happen in my life ahead. Life feels expansive when I talk more vulnerably and openly about my emotions and how I’m actually doing allowing people to enter the fence of my emotional landscape. Some of these conversations have happened with my boss about my doubts about writing a Hawaiian book despite not being Hawaiian, seeing a therapist in-person to understand my anxiety and my needs better, and sharing my insecurities with friends.

All in all, I am grateful to be living a life that I journaled about having years ago.
A life where I was a walking distance of a body of (swimmable) water.
A life where I felt alive and spent most of my days smiling and laughing. 
A life where I had boundless love to give and receive.

Thank you, Hawaii for being my home these past two years. I felt safe enough to take leaps of faith with my actions and grow into a more courageous and confident version of myself.

You’ve given me the greatest lesson of all: how to be happy.

🌠 In & 🙅🏻‍♀️ Out July

Happy July! Here’s a brief snippet from my monthly reflection:

❌ 📖 Not Reading

In the past, I’ve bought gazillion books on happiness but I’ve never read a single one past the introduction. I’m now realizing that it is because I believe that being happy isn’t something someone needs to study. It’s a feeling that is evoked when everything else is aligned in your life and you allow yourself to feel it through your body and heart rather than thinking yourself to it.

🎬 Watching

“How do you measure a year?” is a 29-minute film that I stumbled across on HBO.

Filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt filmed his daughter Ella on her birthday in the same spot, asking her the same questions from ages two to eighteen every year on her birthday. He waited seventeen years to see what he captured.

During each recording, he asks her a series of questions. “What do you think of our relationship? What are your dreams? What are your nightmares? What were the highlights of the previous year? What would you say to your twenty-five-year-old self as you’re watching this?” he also zooms out and asks about how their relationship is as a father-daughter. Similar to what I did above with my relationship with Hawaii. People usually don’t do this until they have to when someone leaves their life, so I loved that question. Throughout the film, Ella’s answers to these questions give off a range of emotions, from funny to thought-provoking and sometimes sad.

We get to watch her grow from a toddler to a young woman with all the beautiful and awkward steps in between. Each phase is captured quickly, so it quickly shows the contrast against the next year. It is a gentle reminder of how time passes so fast. It also reminds us how aging can change us. Not only do we mature with age, but our thoughts and identities change as well.

My favorite lines:

”What do you like most in life?“
“Friends and family. and Hannah Montana.”

🎧Listening

People help the people
And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh, and if I had a brain, oh, and if I had a brain
I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned all those good hearts away

God knows what is hiding in this world of little consequence
Behind the tears, inside the lies
A thousand slowly dying sunsets
God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts
Guess the loneliness came knocking
No one needs to be alone or sinking

🌟Quote to inspire

“You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” - Diane von Furstenburg, Belgian fashion designer

📸 Photos of the Week

On Saturday night I went to go see Hawaii’s first American Idol Iam Tongi play at his hometown in Kahuku on the north shore. His music brought goosebumps to me.

It’d be remiss to forget to mention that the venue was a little underwhelming. They confiscated my snacks before entering and there weren’t enough food vendors. After I waited three hours in line, I received the most mediocre hot dog of my life for $14. But I did make a lot of friends while in line (featured in the last photo) that were Spawnbreezie and Iam’s biggest fans. They had electric energy dancing and singing to every song despite our hanger.

🙏Shoutouts

• To Hawaii. Thank you for being my home ❤️

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I appreciate you reading this!

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Never stop learning 😁

Mahalo 🌺

Jen

PS - in case you missed last week’s letter 164: 🎤 Learning to Surrender through Singing

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