From Hanoi to Bali (with a Stop at Home): What This Mid-Year Check-In Revealed About My Journey So Far—and What I'm Really After

I thought I was just chasing cheap rent—but it turns out I’ve been chasing peace. Here’s what I’ve learned halfway through 2025 (and what’s coming next).

Part I

I just landed back in Japan. Haven’t been here all year, I departed for Thailand on New Year’s Eve 2024 and never looked back. Until now.

I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I landed. Japan has been home for this exile for about as long as any other. I first came here when I was twenty-seven and have spent most of my adult life here since then. Until now.

I’m only in Japan for five days. A good friend’s wedding. A chance to catch up with my beloved daughter. A bit of time with friends. I’d stay longer, but compared to Southeast Asia Tokyo is terribly expensive, and the reason that I’m doing the nomad life is partially to keep a low overhead while I focus on building my business as a writer and a publisher.

It’s not ideal, this life I’m leading. I am sticking to highly affordable places, and that limits me. It serves my requirements, usually. My goals, most of the time. But it doesn’t always feed my spirit. There’s a lot of chaos and disharmony in those places, and I’m noting even as I bus my way into Tokyo just how calm, quiet and organized it is here. I haven’t heard a single honk, and I’ve been on the road for a half-hour now.

I think I should take an onsen bath while I’m here. Frankly, my central nervous system has been getting a workout, particularly in some of the larger cities like Bangkok and Hanoi. Part of me thinks it’s a good challenge, but I’m also realizing what I don’t want out of my experiences as I look to the remainder of my days here on Earth. Calm and peace are paramount, and if that’s not happening on the outside, it’s really hard to get it going inwardly.

But again, I am doing this for a reason. And one thing I can say for sure about Southeast Asia—I am getting a ton of work done. I mean, really there isn’t much more for me to worry about other than to focus on the business. Relationships are pleasant but transient, I don’t have a routine to speak of so it’s not hard to break it for the sake of work, and I don’t have that usual relaxed cave situation I always did when I was settled in, the kind of cave where I can pop on some youtube and waste a day.

No, this really is for the best, though I am strongly considering whether Japan may be the place I come back to in the end. It’s either here or America, really. I can’t imagine bothering with a long-term visa and a whole new place this late in the game. And America, for all it’s wonders, is also incredibly expensive, and quite volatile these days. Not the combination I’m in search of.

So, again, where am I? Emotionally, I am grateful and growing. Not perfect. And this year has been an emotional roller-coaster which has revealed a lot more about me, stuff that was buried deeper than when I write my first inner child book. Incidentally, that has been the capstone of the year so far. On my birthday, March 13^th, I published Wounded Angels: A Journey to Wholeness Through Inner Child Healing, and have been using that seminal work as a springboard for all my online efforts to convey what I’ve learned and what I know can be of help.

Additionally, I’m working on some fiction, as well. There are two major books in the works, and although I have been more focused on non-fiction healing writing the first half of the year, things are ramping up on the fiction side as we roll into the deep summer.

Next stop, Bali, assuming the currently-erupting volcano doesn’t quash my plans. And from there?