You Can Only Go So Far On Your Own (2025 in Review)

What do these three have in common: a career coach, a ginger cat, and a book editor?

The path is better when travelled in company. Photo: mine.

As a migrant, moving countries multiple times and leaving friends and family behind, learning to be emotionally and practically independent is a compulsory life skill. Not the unhealthy kind of hyper-independence born of distrust, but the kind learned out of necessity. It’s a necessity when you pack two big suitcases to move across the Atlantic and have to leave everything else behind. It’s a necessity when you finish school, and everyone, yourself included, is emigrating to a different corner of the world. You learn to entertain yourself. You use your journal as a debate buddy. You rely on Google Maps more than on people — especially in places where you don’t speak the language.

Bref, as the French love to say.

I’m used to being self-reliant, independent, used to figuring everything out on my own.

But this year, oh, this one was a tough nut to crack by myself. So I had to (re)learn that reaching out is not a weakness, but a strength.

The career coach

In January, I didn’t have the mental space for annual goals. A complicated situation of misbehavior at work stopped me in my blissful tracks. That’s when Clara came in to save the day. Or rather, I called Clara to ask for help. She is a career coach, considerably younger than me, yet she carries the wisdom of a circle of old women by the fire, trading stories.

She started by asking me to write my own obituary. At the time, I did feel like I was dying on the inside, but… did I need an obituary already?! It turns out it was a revealing and fun exercise to clarify what really matters to me in my life. Here’s but a small snapshot of it, supposedly read by my future partner, 48 years from now:

“... She did keep up her blog, writing essays; she created an international community of writers from all around. Half of them are dead now too, unfortunately. …”

Clara taught me about emotional agility. About recognizing drama triangles and stepping out of them. About noticing who tries to pull you into theirs. We talked through my core values, what energizes me on an ordinary day. She opened my eyes to deep-seated fears I didn’t know were running the show, crouched in dark corners, directing my inner monologue from the backseat. She taught me how to respond instead of react.

In a few months, I felt like I’d done an intensive boot camp in self-esteem, clarity and inner strength. She is luminous like a ray of sunshine, and she has single-handedly turned my emotional well-being right back on track — all with a smile on her face.

I cannot imagine where I’d be at the end of this year without her gentle support. We can all read the books and study the theory on our own. But having someone guide you week after week to apply what you read, at times hold your hand, quite literally, that’s the real flex that makes the difference.

You can only go so far on your own.

Thanks to Clara’s guidance, I stopped putting my dreams on the back burner. I recognized that finishing my memoir was a top priority in my heart — I had to stop wasting time.

This brings me to the second person who helped me go farther this year.

The book editor

Sydney, my new(ish) book editor.

Let me tell you, taking your dreams seriously is scary. Paying a professional and investing in polishing my own words made everything so much more real, tangible. There is nowhere to hide when the spotlight is bright, when there’s an audience in the room. For now, there is an audience of one, Sydney, but that’s enough to make me aware of the path I’m taking.

Sydney warned me to take my time reading her 15-page report on my manuscript, as it might feel overwhelming. She recommended taking breaks. Of course, I didn’t listen to her and I gulped down the entire thing in one sitting. It was exhilarating. I laughed in recognition, I cried in shock. I couldn’t believe how deeply she seemed to get me — how much of my backstory she grasped from a hundred unfinished pages.

That overwhelming feeling of surprise and also gratitude, that spotlight she had put on me by seeing me only through my words. That is why I write, I realized. To be known beyond the superficial layer, to have my story live out in this world.

I remembered Chia’s words from Dream Count, which I’d read earlier in the year: “I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being”. Now I was discovering that that might be possible, with a little bit of help from some friends.

Before working with Sydney, I’d been stuck for over a year, unsure where to take my memoir next. Now, with her guidance, the story arc is clear, the heroine’s journey is mapped. I can see the book — my first book — finished and ready to sit on the shelves of your closest bookstore.

You can only go so far on your own.

You can get stuck and maybe believe the path goes nowhere. Or you can take someone along the way, a fresh set of eyes to look at the path from a different angle.

And the third lesson in companionship and walking the path together this year came from a stray, ginger cat.

The ginger cat, my good boy

He started showing up in my backyard, frail and hungry, but terrified of human presence.

Every day, I had to leave him the food and take a few steps back until he’d dare get close to it. But after the warming-up 90-day period, he allowed me to touch his head for just a few seconds until he’d spring back, startled again. Then, he allowed me a few seconds more, tilting his head and crying a heartbreaking cry. Not purring, crying like a baby, both scared I would mistreat him as his previous owners had and accepting my love at once. From that day on, I’d give him his portion of love before his food. He gulped on both, and I want to believe he lived his best life those last three months of life he had left.

When he went into hiding to die peacefully, I knew he had changed me forever.

I never had a pet before. I didn’t know the heart-shattering feeling of losing one, even after caring for him for only six months. The tender love I received from my stray ginger cat reminded me of what is truly important in life. In a year dominated by concepts like budget reforecasting, misbehavior management and conflict resolution skills, the reality of an older cat in my backyard needing me for his daily nourishment kept me grounded in real life.

His coarse fur, his golden eyes and his cry for a loving touch are the things I will miss the most from this year.

Your heart can only go so far on its own.

* * *

Looking in hindsight, which is how we see best anyway, on your own you might get quite far. But you’ll go even farther when you let others take you by the hand and keep you company for a while.

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I’m Monica, and I navigate life as a multi-country expat, surrounded by books and writing. My mind is modeled by the 5 languages I speak (almost) daily.

Millennial Monica is my newsletter about what it’s like to live a multicultural life and not lose your Self along the way. Interested in reading more of my work?