The mathematics of staying

It's 18:50 and I'm sitting on my balcony watching the port lights begin to flicker on as dusk settles over the Red Sea. My coffee has gone cold again—I seem to be collecting cold coffees lately like other people collect souvenirs.

I've been staring at my phone for the past hour, trying to solve an equation that doesn't balance.

53 days until my booked departure from Jordan. 147 days until I turn 51 and fly home to Kristiansand. And somewhere between those numbers, a decision that's been circling me like the gulls over the fishing boats below.

I came to Aqaba three days ago with a clear intention: see the coastal side of Jordan, snorkel the Red Sea, experience the contrast to Petra's stone silence. I've done those things. The coral reefs were extraordinary—colors I didn't know existed in nature, fish that seemed painted rather than real. I've walked the Corniche at sunset, eaten fresh seafood at a harborside restaurant where the waiter knew my coffee order by the second day, watched the maritime ballet of cargo ships and pleasure boats navigating the narrow gulf between Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

I've even found the trees here—different from anywhere else on this journey. Salt-tolerant species I don't know the names of, their leaves silvered by the sea air, growing in conditions that would kill the oaks and pines I'm used to. There's something about their persistence that feels relevant, though I'm not sure why.

But here's the problem: I've also spent the past three days planning my route after October 7th, and I've realized something uncomfortable.

I have 147 days left. That's 21 weeks. And if I maintain my usual pace of 3-4 days per location, that's only 35-49 more places before I'm back in Norway, sitting in my apartment, returning to work at the hospital, resuming a life that will feel both familiar and foreign after 500 days away.

35 places to see the world.

When I put it like that, it sounds absurd. How do you choose 35 places out of everything that exists? How do you decide what matters enough to spend three days of your remaining 147 on it?

This afternoon, I sat at a beachside café—the one with the good wifi and the waiter who's stopped asking if I want more coffee and just brings it—and I made lists. Countries I haven't seen. Cities I've always meant to visit. Natural wonders. Historical sites. Places people have told me I must experience.

The lists got longer and longer until they stopped meaning anything.

Somewhere around hour two, the waiter—his name is Fadi, I learned today—sat down across from me uninvited. In Jordan, this would normally be followed by a sales pitch or an offer to show me "the real Aqaba," but Fadi just looked at my phone screen covered in notes and lists and said: "You are trying to see everything."

It wasn't a question.

"I'm running out of time," I told him.

He laughed, not unkindly. "You have been here three days and you have seen the sea every morning. You know my name. You know that Ahmed at the restaurant makes the best sayadieh in Aqaba. You know where the sun sets behind the mountains. This is not nothing."

"But there's so much I haven't—"

"There will always be more than you can see," he interrupted, which felt rude until I realized he was right. "The question is not how many places. The question is: are you here?"

Then he got up and brought me another coffee I hadn't asked for, and I sat there feeling like I'd been gently slapped.

Am I here?

I've been so focused on the mathematics—days remaining, places to visit, experiences to collect—that I'm not sure I've actually been present for most of them. I've been in Aqaba for three days, but how much have I actually seen? I mean really seen, the way I saw Petra when I sat in the silence and let it settle into my bones?

I've snorkeled the reef, but I was thinking about my next destination. I've walked the Corniche, but I was calculating travel times. I've watched the port activity, but I was planning transport connections.

I've been here, but I haven't been here.

And now, sitting on this balcony as the sky bleeds from blue to purple to black, I'm wondering if I've been asking the wrong question this entire journey.

I thought the question was: how do I change? How do I become someone who can change the world? How do I transform before I turn 51 and time runs out?

But maybe the question is simpler and harder: how do I actually experience the life I'm living?

Because right now, with 147 days left, I'm realizing I could visit 100 more places and learn nothing, or I could stay in five places and finally understand what I came out here to find.

The restlessness that's been my constant companion—the thing that's driven me from Kristiansand to Cairo to Amman to Petra to here—might not be telling me to move faster. It might be telling me to stop running.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this realization.

I have a booked departure on October 7th. That's fixed. But after that? Maybe fewer places, more depth. Maybe I stop trying to see everything and start trying to understand something.

Fadi's words keep circling back: "Are you here?"

I want to be able to answer yes.

The port lights are fully lit now, reflecting off the dark water in wavering columns of gold and white. Somewhere out there, cargo ships are navigating by stars and GPS, carrying goods between continents, connecting places I'll never visit to places I might.

I think about the trees I saw today, the salt-tolerant ones growing in impossible conditions. They're not trying to grow everywhere. They're just growing here, deeply, persistently, making the most of where they are.

Maybe that's the lesson.

Maybe I need to stop trying to be everywhere and start being somewhere.

The coffee's cold, but I drink it anyway.

147 days.

I'm going to make them count.