“From Yaad to Yard” is a bi-weekly column where Breanna Burke, a Jamaican international student at Stanford, shares her unique experiences navigating life on the Farm. Through reflections on culture, identity and academia, she offers a thoughtful perspective on bridging the distance between her Caribbean roots and her new life on the Farm.

“John, we have an emergency here in the back.”

The echoed shriek of the intercom reverberated through the plane, bouncing off the sleeping heads sticking out in the altar until it made its way back to me. I was sitting on the slightly wet, cold floor in front of the bathroom with an oxygen mask wrapped around my face. It definitely wasn’t my cutest moment. 

Although I had been flying since I was little and had grown accustomed to even the most disgruntling hums of the plane engine, the 6+ hour flight from Jamaica to San Francisco felt like carrying a cybertruck on the top of my head up 200 flights of stairs. This time, it had somehow gotten worse. The motion sickness had overtaken my entire being and before I knew it, the very aerophobic man beside me nervously muttered that he was taking another Xanax at the sight of my yellowing face. 

At that moment, I wished I hadn’t decided to go to Stanford. I wished I would’ve just been a normal person and decided to go to college back home like everyone else. That way, I wouldn’t have to experience the turbulence of long flights, the dreary taste of dining hall food and the perpetual feeling of being alone, living away from everything I’ve ever known and loved. My regret was almost as potent as the bile rising in my stomach and the guilt of feeling ungrateful just made the motion sickness worse. People would kill to have a life like mine. How dare I regret my greatest accomplishment?

Thankfully, despite the embarrassment I felt as the exhaustingly long flight came to an end and we landed in the cold air of the night, I recovered. Since then, I’ve returned to my routine, guided by the entrancing rhythm of Stanford: late night TAP dinners, Zipcar runs to Target and laughter echoing through the dorm hallways. Yet, every once in a while, when something goes wrong or I’m feeling homesick, I can’t help but question if I made the right choice. 

When grabbing dinner with a friend this week, I became aware that this wasn’t only my experience. His life had followed an untraditional trajectory, one that would’ve left many frustrated, but he exuded peace. He was confident in himself and acknowledged that even though he sometimes wished he had made different choices, he wouldn’t be who he was if he had. And he was grateful for that. I was amazed and, if I’m being truthful, a bit envious. So much of my life has been spent looking for the next best step that would push me forward in this arbitrary map of progress and success that wasn’t even defined by what I wanted. But, that’s everybody, right? Unlike him, I don’t think I ever truly stopped to appreciate the decisions I made that, although difficult, allowed me to have the life that I wanted. Regrets weren’t just moments I had, they were difficult experiences of being in tension with myself and the world and making choices that were best for the future version of myself I wanted to be. I never realized how much beauty there was in that,and definitely never thought to give myself some grace for accepting my humanity enough to wish things went differently sometimes. 

There are still many days when I feel regretful. At the end of freshman year, when I was moving my stuff into storage alone, I wondered if I would have been happier back home, in a place I’d have more support. It also didn’t help that I have a ridiculous large amount of belongings (and a 50lb electric bike that I had to fit into the tiny trunk of a Corolla). Sometimes when Arrillaga does their rendition of “jerk chicken,” I’ll admit that I wonder how crazy I must have been to give up the most delicious food in the world. And every once in a while, I wonder if I should’ve stayed in a place where I’d never be pushed out of my comfort zone — somewhere that I wouldn’t question if I was smart enough to belong there. 

But I’m happy that I have these regrets. And I’m even happier that I’m learning to not feel guilty about them. Every day, I am working towards being confident in the decisions I’ve made, even the ones I regret. See, being alive is being constantly in retrospect. There’s no rule book on how to be happy, no formula for being successful. I’m still figuring out what “success” even means. But what we do have is the life we live now: the people that make our hearts flutter with joy and pride at being theirs, the debatable dining hall food that nourishes my body and always, ourselves — always. 

And although I still don’t know the answers, I am choosing to find beauty and gratitude in the fact that I have choices, even if I’m worried I’ll make the wrong one. I am also choosing to let that be enough, for both present and future versions of me.