Three years ago, on March 12, 2020, I turned twenty two years old and was permanently sent home from Vanderbilt University in what felt like a true global apocalypse. My younger brother, Alex—a Vandy freshman at the time—sat in the driver’s seat of our 2006 sedan as we took one last drive around campus, my cheeks wet with the knowledge that whatever hopes I had for a lounging, formative closure to four monumental years would never see the light of day.
In the back seat sat Alex’s now ex-girlfriend and her roommate, whose concerned families were halfway across the globe, inaccessible and unable to provide immediate shelter. Whether we liked it or not, carrying Chinese faces in the gun-wielding American South made us all susceptible to being blamed for an illness that was upending our lives just as much as anyone else’s, and my unnerved immigrant parents urged us to return home.
With nowhere else to go, the four of us stuffed what belongings we could into the trunk of our small car and commenced the eight-hour trek from Nashville to Chicago. Somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, we would get caught in an emergency tornado warning, taking refuge under the roof of an isolated, run-down gas station until the whiplike thunder and punishing rainfall passed overhead. (This was also when devastation finally gave way to guffawing disbelief. Watching the swirling flashes of lightning on the horizon, I could not help but laugh my ass off at how poorly this birthday was going.)
I was notified that I had received the Keegan Fellowship just a couple of weeks prior, but suddenly, all bets were off—no one knew what was going to happen. With our graduation ceremony moving online, were we still planning on setting off immediately post-grad? Was the fellowship going to be taken away from us? Would COVID ever allow us to travel again at all?
Two years ago, on March 12, 2021, an entire year after surrendering the independent agency of college and moving back home, I turned twenty three and spread my few adult possessions on the floor of my childhood bedroom, assessing what to bring along with me into the wake of a new chapter.
Still living in fearful vigilance of a virus that had rocked the entire world, my Keegan start date continued to get postponed--first it was a few months, then a year, and then two years.
But at some point in the reflective nothingness of quarantine, I was blessed with the tremendous realization that I would never be guaranteed a tomorrow in this life. Tomorrow, in fact, could and would bring war, economic collapse, or another global pandemic. No, regardless of the risk involved or the uncertainty ahead, I needed to be doing what I truly wanted to be doing, today.
Just two days later, with no real plan, virtually zero local professional contacts, and a Bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science, I would move to New York City to pursue my childhood dream of becoming an actor.
Today, on March 12, 2023, I am sitting on the roof of a house in Kavre Bhanjyang, Nepal—a rural village situated in the foothills of the Himalayas. After a day of milking cows and tilling soil, I’ve just had a hot shower, my still wet hair tinged cold by the brisk wind of the surrounding mountains. A thick, gray fog shrouds the towering snowy peaks of the Himalayas in the distance. The occasional passing motorbike sends a clear rumble through the echoing, green valley and its endlessly layered rice paddies.
When COVID began, I was twenty one years old. Today, somehow, I am twenty five.
Over the past few years, I have met people and encountered situations I couldn’t have dreamt up if I tried. From walking red carpets in Hollywood to living with a Bedouin tribe in the Jordanian desert, I have frequently been taking myself back to the start of this long journey, in awe of all that has transpired, remembering how seemingly randomly the cards were stacked right before they unfolded in the way that they did.
I say all of this, I suppose, as a reminder to myself to give God and the universe more credit for being infinitely more chaotic than I could ever possibly comprehend. To remember that this life has surprised me for the better, and to know that it will do so again.
As I walk this earth for a full quarter of a century today, I’m feeling more like my truest self than I ever have. My heart is filled with gratitude for every single opportunity and challenge that has molded me into who I am, for all the characters who have played a role in this ever-unraveling story.
When I was still a small child, turning twenty five seemed so impossibly far off that I thought I would be married by then; a home owner, even. Well, little man, I am most definitely neither of those things, but I am more curious and excited than ever for what comes next.
