When I first moved to the U.S., I told everyone I was fine.

But the truth was—I wasn’t.

I was lonely. I missed home. I had $2,000 in my account and no idea what was coming next.

Some days, I’d walk into cafés just to feel a little less alone. I’d order coffee I didn’t really need, pretending I had meetings lined up, pretending I belonged.

But the pretending didn’t help.
It made everything feel worse.

What I came to realize is that performing okay is not the same as being okay. The more I acted like everything was fine, the more disconnected I felt—from others and from myself.

Pretending is exhausting. It’s hiding in plain sight.

And when we get stuck in the performance—when we don’t feel safe enough to be real—we deny ourselves the opportunity to ask for support, to be seen, and to actually move through what we’re feeling.

For me, the shift started when I dropped the act.

When I finally admitted, “I’m not fine.”

That one sentence changed everything.

It allowed me to open up. To get support through coaching, to build real community, and to find clarity I didn’t even know I was looking for.

Because sometimes the strongest thing you can do isn’t to power through—it’s to pause and tell the truth.

You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You just need to be honest about where you are.

That’s where real change begins.

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