You asked for my hustle

There are people who arrive in your life before you know who you are becoming.

They meet you when you are still wide-eyed, still soft around the edges, still unarmored enough to believe that work is just work and that men are just men and that the world is not yet something that needs navigating.

He took me under his wing when I was still like that.

Before the industry hardened me.
Before heartbreak carved out sharper angles.
Before I learned to measure my words and ration my warmth.

I remember calling him once at four in the morning from California. I had run outside barefoot because someone I loved had yelled at me in a way that made the air feel unsafe. I didn’t know who else to call. He picked up. He didn’t dramatize it. He didn’t belittle it. He steadied me.

I remember the first time I saw him cry. We were in a crowded yakitori restaurant. The air smelled like grilled skewers and soy sauce and beer foam except neither of us liked beer. He spoke about his father and his voice cracked in a way that startled me. It’s strange how quickly someone becomes human when you see them grieve. It rearranges the hierarchy of roles. You are just two people with fathers and unfinished stories.

We used to take walks in Japan that felt almost animated like two characters crossing a quiet bridge while the city blurred into watercolor. No agenda. No performance. Just conversation and the rhythm of footsteps. He gave me a sense of security I hadn’t yet known how to build for myself. It was one of the first times I felt like I belonged somewhere.

Not because I was exceptional. I wasn’t.
Not because I was useful. I wasn’t.
But because I was seen.

So I wanted to thank him by giving back what I could.

Not just to him as a mentor, though that is the clean word for it. Not just as my superior, which feels too transactional. He was an anchor. A proof of safety. Someone I wanted to give back to endlessly because I knew what taking me under his wing when I had nothing to offer had meant for me.

We had fun in the smallest ways. Shopping for bath towels. Debating wardrobes before a date. Ordinary things that become sacred when you don’t necessarily come from the warmest upbringing and while learning how to exist in rooms that once intimidated you.

Somewhere along the way, something shifted. We seemed to hang out more when I visited than when I actually lived there. Distance felt softer than proximity. I don’t know when that began. I don’t know if I changed first. Or if he did. I know we both hardened from experiences in the interim but I didn’t think it would harden the space between us.

There is a quiet grief in watching a dynamic change.

I have wondered if I am to blame. If I asked for too much invisibly. If my desire to reciprocate what he gave me became weight instead of warmth. When effort goes unnoticed, someone slowly withers not out of resentment, but out of uncertainty.

And that uncertainty can look like withdrawal.

I hope he knows that I am both grateful and sad. That I would have dropped everything for him. That for a long time, I did. Not because I expected something in return. But because gratitude can be its own form of devotion.

It is a difficult thing to admit that belonging can fade. That one of the first places you felt at home might not remain unchanged. But maybe that is the nature of formative connections. They shape you. They steady you. And then they release you, sometimes without ceremony.

Even if home looks different now, I will always carry that version of us promising each other that we’d always be there for each other. And even if I’ve changed a bit in spirit, even if I’ve lost a bit of my doe-eyed wonder, I haven’t given up on that promise.