Or rather, a series of heartbreaks that led me on a winding path that found me right here. I think it was Herman Hesse who wrote,

“The path is a spiral.”

In 2000, I left Singapore with no intention of returning to live. But on May 31, 2018, not only did I find myself in the city of my dreams, I fell in love … at an age and in a time I did not think love would come again. Yet there it was. My love wanted to live here, in Asia. His dream became mine - our dream; a future he could not wait to begin living with me, he said.

A series of false starts, break-ups, reconciliations and promises put in motion irreversible decisions that had life-changing consequences, for one of us. It was this final heartbreak on December 20, 2022, exhausted and broken, with my heart and mental health in splinters, that the idea of The Rest was born.

I was lost; my mind fractured, body in deep pain and soul in despair. I was desperate for a place I could go to repair. I knew I needed a specific kind of safe harbour, yet did not know what that was. It was no surprise I could not find it.

But I had a house, an old family home that was left to disrepair. I had started re-building it a few months before, using all the money I had in the world. It couldn’t be stopped. It was to be our forever home. Our ‘forever’ only lasted 4.5 years but here was a sign. I couldn’t find the specific safe harbour I needed, but perhaps I could create it for myself, and for others.

It was another turn in life’s spirally path - that with gentle intentions, hope in love and a willingness to reimagine, would lead us somewhere beautiful.

Maybe there are no wrong turns.