untitled

Today is travel day. I fly from Guam to Sacramento, but the important stop is San Francisco, Daly City to be exact. I bought a bakery. My aunt, Mom’s sister, is retiring and wanted to sell to family before opening it up to strangers, but that’s a story for another time.

This story, my story, starts here. I sent the cashier’s check for the agreed-upon deposit amount, and the takeover is on the 1st of January 2026.

Fast forward, it’s mid-January. I am writing this in pieces, between the decision to do it and actually doing it. The realization that life and adulting are happening prevents me from finishing up writing or doing anything creative; well, creative in terms of writing, not creativity at the bakery.

I am now a business owner. Not that I’ve never been a business owner, I’ve been doing my photography for 20+ years professionally, if even only part-time, but this is the first brick-and-mortar business I have ever owned, and it is scary and exciting at the same time.

I am noticing that, more and more, I am acting like my parents: I am constantly watching my bottom line, employee hours, our spending on ingredients, business insurance, and looking for bargains at my local suppliers. There was a time when all of that—the spreadsheets, the budgets, the endless practical considerations—felt like the opposite of living, like it would bury the creative part of me. But now? Now it feels like engaging with life, like I'm building something instead of just letting days happen to me.

This is not to say I am giving up the creative part of my life, that will always be a part of me; it’s who I am. I did it whilst working at the bakery on Guam. The only difference now is that this bakery in Daly City is mine—ours, really; my cousins are partners in this—but whether it thrives or fails is directly connected to how I show up, what I prioritize, the work I put in. The outcome is now in my hands in a way nothing else has been. Which makes this the perfect proving ground, because my retirement plan involves having a small bakery/cafe in the mountains somewhere in the Philippines, just my wife and me creating content, baking bread, and brewing espresso drinks for whoever wants to stop by our shop. This is the retirement dream, so, in essence, this might be a trial run of that life, but on a much larger scale, because it is my intention that the Philippine operation be very much a mom-and-pop operation.

I am excited. Excited because this is all part of my planning and goal-setting, because up until this moment, I had never really set goals or planned things in my life; I had been existing but not really living. Not anymore. I think it's appropriate that the title of this piece is untitled. I'm still developing, and so is this story. I'll let you know along the way what happens—the photography continues, the travel continues, but this bakery? This adds a whole new flavor to the mix.