Still alive.

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Ten years in America. Forty-something on Earth. Still have no idea—but most importantly, still alive.

I arrived in Boston with questions and hunger and a raw, unshaped curiosity I couldn’t even name. Boston was cold in a way Greece never was. Not just in temperature—but in tempo. In the way people moved, in how they didn’t ask, didn’t notice too much. Everything felt fast and structured. It scared me. I had to remind myself why I came: to be curious. About the world—but more importantly, about who I could become outside the familiar.

I spent those early years translating—not just English, but emotion, intention, how to stand in line, how to say “excuse me,” and how to belong. My name changed depending on the barista: Stef, Steve, Stephen. Once, I asked a cashier if she had quarters. She handed me a Core water and smiled. I walked out with overpriced hydration and still no way to do my laundry. And then there’s my dog. My wife named him Ernie. The stress of explaining a dog’s name in your accent to strangers in a dog park… My most significant “not again” moment of the day is still the question: What’s your dog’s name?

But somewhere between the mispronunciations and misunderstandings, something started to shift. I missed home, yes. I missed the sea, the mess, the coffees that turned into sunsets, the language I didn’t have to explain. I forgot that earlier version of me who wasn’t constantly trying to prove something. And I missed Thessaloniki—not just the city, but what it does to time. There’s a softness to how time unfolds there. It doesn’t demand productivity. It invites presence.

In Boston, I found something else. I found endurance. I found clarity. I found the edges of myself, and then I softened them. I learned to stand on my own—not because I wanted to, but because I had to. And now, I sometimes wonder: would my younger self even recognize me? Would he understand why I had to let some dreams go to make room for others?

I think he’d be okay—not because everything went to plan, but because I kept going when it didn’t. Because I stayed curious. Because I learned to belong to myself, even when nothing around me felt familiar. After ten years, I still have Greece in my bones, Boston in my becoming, and this weirdly gorgeous sense of home in the in-between.

A decade marked by a global pandemic that transformed how we work, live, and connect. Wars and conflicts are always humming in the background. Millions forced to leave home. Here, political division deepened. It’s been a decade of uncertainty, challenge, and change—a reminder that history has no brakes, and neither do the questions about who we are, what we value, and how we move on.

Now, fatherhood has changed me again. It made things more tender, more fragile, more full. I don’t panic the way I used to. I don’t perform for approval or chase imaginary finish lines. When my mind demands certainty, I offer it trust instead. Because curiosity is still here. And trust has joined it. Together, they give me room to fail, room to start again, and room to grow.

So I do. With a little more grace each time, I feel it’s time again. It is also time for a Negroni.

Ten years in America. Forty-something on Earth. Still have no idea—but most importantly, still alive.