I wanted to hack together a piece for you to read. A piece that is honest, that manages to capture this startup journey in a few paragraphs. A piece that skids and sings and wanders to an eventual conclusion. I don’t have those perfect words, so these will have to suffice.

Today is January 2, 2013. It’s the start of another year of growing Travelstrings in Los Angeles, and I have to admit that I’m exhausted. It’s been a rocky thirteen months since Tri and I first conceptualized a “personalized travel journal” back in November 2011. I’ve experienced the extremes of emotion – the highs of building something novel and beautiful tangled with the lows of insecurity and anger. Starting a company is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s challenging and scary and reward is constantly delayed.

There are days when I flat-out hate myself and the only reprieve is sleep. There are days when I am so lost that I resort to losing myself in Dexter or How I Met Your Mother rather than continue thinking. There are days when I don’t want to get out of bed because doing so precipitates opening an inevitable string of emails. (The worst is when there are no emails and it feels like nobody cares.)

I struggle with patience. I’m not sure when it’s impossible to finish a task by a certain time and when I should push because our capability is there. Despite being twenty-two years old, I compare myself to older, wiser CEOs, and it has required every bit of discipline I have to quiet the steady steam of criticism in my head. I am still fighting the idea that I cannot know everything.

And yet this year was pretty amazing. This year, we incorporated Travelstrings before we graduated from college. We applied for Startup UCLA with a bare bones MVP and somehow got in. We were featured in four articles and magazines, and launched two awesome products. And I found cofounders that believe in the same things that I do, and two that continue with me on this journey.

I don’t expect the future to follow any sort of traditional path, because I don’t anticipate making conventional choices. My team and I have declined salaried jobs to chase this dream of Travelstrings, moved in together, and haven’t killed each other yet. Through hard work and perseverance, we’ve learned more of the skills we’ll need to survive. We’ve surrounded ourselves with talent and support, from our home at Cross Campus to our families at home.

And though we’re faced daily with the existential question of whether we will exist tomorrow, I’m never been more excited for what tomorrow brings.