Travel Sick

That dream again.

A whole field of daisies — white petals, yellow hearts — running all the way out to where the sea met the sky. The wind was salt. The earth under my bare feet was cool. I was standing in a place I'd never been that felt exactly like home, and I took one long, deep breath—

"Daisy? Daisy, are you on mute? Can you hear us?"

The field shattered like glass, the way your heart does when you get cold-called in a meeting you'd been sleeping through.

In front of me: not the North Sea. A 27-inch monitor and a wall of Jira. Red cards, yellow cards, green cards, packed tight, each one whispering the same thing: you're not going home tonight either. June in the Bay Area — the sky outside should've been offensively blue, but today it was a pane of grey glass someone forgot to wipe. The AC had been blowing on the back of my neck for seven months. I could no longer tell whether that draft was the air conditioning or my life leaking out 🫠

"Yep, here, I'm here." I unmuted fast and hung up my customer-service smile — the one I'd practiced for seven months, the one that had grown into the flesh of my face.

My manager's name is Brad. He carries a mug that says "World's Okayest Boss" — and he genuinely thinks it's funny. "Just got out of a sync," he said. "Leadership pulled in the Q3 project. Client wants a demo by end of month."

I waited for him to get to the point. Stay at a big tech company long enough and you learn that every piece of real news comes padded in three layers of filler, like the toppings in bubble tea — you have to keep pulling on the straw before you hit anything solid.

"So we'd like you to own it."

There it was.

Own. Beautiful word. Sounds like they're placing a family heirloom in your hands. Translated into human language it means: if this succeeds it goes on the company's OKRs, and if it fails it goes on my perf. In the entire dictionary of my people, we never developed a way to make holding the bag sound that fancy.

"Timeline's going to be tight," Brad went on, mouth still moving, "but it's great visibility, and it'll absolutely help your calibration next cycle."

Calibration — another polite word for "the process that decides how many shares of RSU your refresh is worth." I said mm. I said mm again. I know exactly where the mms go; I could sight-read a conversation like sheet music, breath marks and all. Brad drifted away satisfied, mug swinging, that word "Okayest" glinting like it was laughing at somebody.

The moment he left, I switched tabs.

It was the tab I keep hidden behind a dozen work tabs: a map. The Netherlands. I zoomed in, and in again — down to that scrap of land they'd wrestled back from the sea, the canals ruled unreasonably straight, and one small dot poking into a lake whose name I couldn't even pronounce: Urk. I'd been staring at it for three weeks. Honestly? Longer. I'd been sneaking looks at it since college, since the afternoon I pulled a book of Dutch Golden Age paintings off a library shelf. Back then I told myself: when I have money, when I have freedom, I'll go.

Then I got the "money." Before I moved to the Bay Area, I thought it was a lot of money.

I got a certain kind of freedom too — the kind you're free to spend working until ten and taking a rideshare home.

Bottom right corner of my screen, Brad again: "btw, could you get me a timeline today? 🙏"

I stared at the little praying hands. A robot was sending me prayers. Incredible 🙃

I took a deep breath. The salt of the North Sea was long gone; all that was left was central air and someone's abandoned oat latte going cold one desk over. I put the Netherlands away — didn't delete it, just tucked it back where nobody could see it — opened a new doc, and typed one word at the top:

Timeline.

Hilarious. My own life didn't have a timeline yet, but sure, let's schedule the demo first.

I started typing anyway. Under my fingertips I could still feel that cool earth, faintly. I told myself: hold on a little longer. Through this project. Until you can buy a one-way ticket that nobody — nobody — gets to block.

What I didn't know yet was this: some boats, once you slip the rope, never come back to their home port.

Nu moet de boot maar varen.

Someone said that to me, later. It means: it's come to this — so let the boat sail.