Five years ago this month, I moved to Kansas thinking I could change the world. That didn’t happen. I wrote about that not long ago. This is a brief snapshot of what came after.

Long before I ever crossed into Kansas, its politics had already crossed into me.

It was 2014, the year I started knocking doors and making phone calls. California had just re-elected Jerry Brown, while Kansas re-elected Sam Brownback.

One governor had been pouring public dollars into cap-and-trade and high-speed rail plans. The other was draining them from public schools and roads in the name of trickle-down salvation.

That contrast has always stuck with me. Brown showed me what government could do; Brownback made me wonder why it didn’t. And so, Kansas became a great curiosity in my mind, and Thomas Frank’s book became a guiding force as I was starting to get into politics as a volunteer grunt worker.

So when the chance came to go there, I took it. The nonprofit internship. The climate focus. The small town that didn’t make the headlines. I went in search of meaning, or at least an answer to the question I had been asking since high school: What does public service actually look like, once the speechifying stops?

Like most youthful blueprints, though, it crumbled the moment it met reality.

The opportunity dried up. And with it, my next step.

I had lined up my next move with the eager precision of a chess player three turns ahead: An apartment and internship in Des Moines, with an environmental policy group ready to take on the post-election world.

Then came election night. Iowa swung the opposite way, and suddenly, there was no post-election work – just silence. No welcome call. No office key. Just me, a couple of suitcases, an empty apartment in Des Moines, and the creeping anxiety of having just turned 19 with no backup plan.

It was Ashley (always one step ahead of me, even when she doesn’t want to be) who suggested I look beyond politics. She was gently nudging me away from a fire I didn’t know was burning me out.

And one day, by complete accident or divine mischief, I found it – a job posting for a part-time news anchor gig at iHeartMedia. I submitted my resume on a lark, fully expecting it to vanish into the void of WorkDay.

But Wendy Wilde, the newsroom director, called.

She was incredibly kind. She told me the job was meant for someone more senior. Suggested I stop by anyway.

I did. And I liked it. The rhythm of it. The low hum of news being born in real time. The way it felt to tell stories that mattered without having to spin them into strategy.

A few weeks later, she called again. The senior job was still out of reach, but an entry-level position had opened up. Would I be interested?

Boy, would I ever.

It wasn’t what I expected – it was better.

Until the very first weekend I was supposed to start, when Ashley, fresh off her second COVID vaccine dose, had a reaction that landed her in the hospital. I drove like hell to Omaha to be with her, then dashed back to Des Moines to make my shift, over-caffeinated and rattled. That was my real first day: Equal parts news briefs and IV drips. Caffeine highs and hospital beeps. A crash course in love and logistical chaos.

Six months later, the lease was up. The radio gig was steady. And after a year of weekend visits and long drives, Ashley and I were ready to take our relationship one step further. So I asked if I could shift to the Omaha office. They said yes. We moved in together that July.

Even then, Omaha was never the end. I always viewed it as an in-between space – a pit stop on the way to somewhere bigger. But like Kansas before it, it had its own lessons to teach.

I found community. I found rhythm. I found a slower pace that I didn’t know I needed.

And eventually, I found The Reader, Omaha’s scrappy, spirited alt paper. Somehow, they trusted me with managing a daily newsletter and a membership program, and I did my best to earn that trust. I also got to be part of a team writing stories that shook loose some corners of the city’s consciousness. I got to write stories that made me feel like a real reporter, not a reformed campaign staffer playing dress-up.

Outside the newsroom, I rediscovered my love for something I never expected to: Music.

I joined Omkara, a Bollywood cover band that brought together engineers, academics, and yes, even ragtag journalists united by one commonality – our shared love of the music the Indian subcontinent has to offer. We flew to Atlanta to play a surprise birthday party. Like every other band, we goofed around and fought over arrangements as much as we possibly could. We got to play venues like the Waiting Room and the Reverb Lounge, which host some of the world’s most legendary indie artists.

The music was great. The friendships were better. Our band’s fearless ringleader, Jitendra Pandit, said afterward:

“The thing about friendship is that it doesn’t have to be forever to be solid. But solid friendships are forever.”

That’s what Omaha gave me – not just a place to regroup, but a community that held me, even if just for a little while.

That’s the thing about the Plains. They don’t scream for your attention. They wait for you to listen.

And if you do, you hear everything: The quiet pain of disinvestment, the resilience in small acts – the beauty in a place that refuses to apologize for being ordinary.

Now, we live in Phoenix. The sun is relentless, the freeways are like Formula One tracks, and the mountains pierce the sky like exclamation points. There’s beauty here, no doubt. But it’s not home.

Neither was the East Bay. Dublin is where dreams feel prepackaged, where you learn to measure your worth by AP scores and college acceptances. It’s all chain coffee shops and McMansions, a place where ambition is currency, and the only way out is up. I spent my high school years trying to outrun it. Maybe parts of myself, too.

Leaving wasn’t easy – not just for me, but also for the people I left behind. My parents were scared and confused, understandably so. The world was shutting down, and I was headed straight into the complete unknown. But I knew I had to go. Dublin was a place I had to leave before I could learn what home really meant.

To me, home is Kansas, where I met Ashley. Where the land taught me humility and forced me to slow down.

Home is Omaha, where the newsroom buzz became my heartbeat, and where Ashley and I started building a life together, messy and magnificent.

Home is the rolling green, the ghostly hum of prairie wind, the long stretches of highway that promise nothing but deliver peace.

Someday, I hope we make it back.

Because for all the ambition that once defined me, all the plans and policy planks and power fantasies I used to carry around like armor, I’ve come to realize that I don’t need to be somebody to matter.

These days, it’s enough to be grounded. To be in love. To tell the truth for a living. To make a life that feels like yours.

And although I don’t know when it’ll be, I still believe that the Plains are waiting patiently for us to come home.