It is never too late to be what you might have been.

I write this from a place that feels like home, but not my home—sitting on the lanai of our condo in Kaʻanapali, Maui, overlooking the ocean. The Hawaiian air is warm and heavy with humidity. Palm trees sway in the wind, bringing forth the smell of the sea that calms me. Turtle doves coo nearby. Families play on the beach below, their laughter and squeals of delight carrying upward as clouds drift lazily across a bright blue sky. As I sit here, I’m reflecting not only on Lima, but also on the six weeks that led me there—Chile, Peru, the reasons I went, and what surfaced at the very end of a journey that felt longer than the others somehow. Not harder. Just deeper. More revealing.