The Aunt Lenore Intervention (Or: Why I’m Running Away to Chase Ghosts)

So, it turns out you can only dodge questions about your "five-year plan" for so long before someone corners you with a checkbook and a map.

The holidays were the usual sensory nightmare. We were all crammed into my cousin’s place in Kalispell—too many bodies, the heat cranked up way too high, and the smell of turkey grease and cheap Pinot Grigio clinging to the upholstery. I spent most of Christmas Eve hiding in the mudroom, staring at my phone and hacking the portal at the church across the street (it was green, I smashed it; old habits die hard), just trying to get five minutes of silence.

That’s where Great-Aunt Lenore found me.

Lenore is... a lot. She’s the one who left the Rez forty years ago, made money doing something vague in real estate (or maybe arms dealing, the family isn't sure), and now wears velvet capes unironically. She sat down on the boot bench next to me, handed me a glass of the good whiskey she keeps in her purse, and asked me why I looked like a trapped animal.

I don't know if it was the whiskey or just the exhaustion of pretending to be a functional adult for three days straight, but I unloaded. I told her about the temp gigs in Bellevue. I told her about the endless data entry for "AI training sets" where I just click on pictures of traffic lights for eight hours a day. I told her I felt like a ghost in my own life—just drifting through tech campuses, badges that expire in six months, never staying long enough to get a desk plant.

She nodded, took a sip of whiskey, and said, "If you feel like a ghost, Tiliki, you might as well go talk to the other ones."

Here’s the deal: Lenore is getting too old to travel, but she’s obsessed with Earth mysteries. Ley lines. Vortexes. The spots where the "veil is thin." (I rolled my eyes at this part, but she ignored me). She wants someone to go to these places, stand on the rocks, and tell her if they feel anything.

She’s paying for the flights. She’s paying for the hostels. She’s giving me a stipend that is, frankly, more than I made clicking on traffic lights last month.

The catch? I have to write it down. I have to go to the most "spiritual" places on earth—Glastonbury, Petra, Sedona—and report back.

I told her I’m a materialist. I told her the only "energy" I believe in is caffeine and 5G coverage. I told her I’m going to treat this whole "Ley Line" thing as a sociological experiment, not a pilgrimage.

She just grinned. "Perfect. The believers are boring anyway. Go pack."

So here I am. My lease in Bellevue is up. My stuff is in storage. I have a one-way ticket to London leaving next week, a brand new backpack that feels like a turtle shell, and absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

I’m Tiliki. I’m 32. I’m currently unemployed, slightly hungover, and apparently, I’m a professional ghost hunter now.

Let's see how long this lasts before I come crawling back for a data entry job.