...Going

August 7th

Leaving Mae Sot was like leaving home for college – painful and reminiscent, making me aware of time passing and how the creation of love and friendships can somehow erase it, or make it non-existent until it comes crashing back to you and you’re looking out the back of a car or tuk-tuk as your friends (your new loves) wave goodbye.  I felt so much there, I was filled up with it, with that little blue light, and I will always have that to carry around with me.  The change that I saw within myself was brought about by the love and experiences that could only be contained in that tiny town, but spread all over the world if I want it to be.  It was my decision to leave Mae Sot because of some external circumstances, yes, but also because I was (am) ready to shine this light elsewhere.  I am confident and purple, light blue and heartful, heartfelt and serious, laughing and pink.   I am totally, completely in love with Asia, with Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, and the next places.  I am so completely in love with myself that it’s hard to tear me away from me and be around other people sometimes.  I am so completely in love with life here; with trishaw bicycles and casual attitudes, with hellos springing from skinny men on motorbikes, with children smiling in ways that their whole mouth comes apart, with moms and dads together loving children and wearing traditional clothing, with tourists and tattoos drinking beer at 2pm, with locals laughing at foreigners over silly misunderstandings.  With the beauty that is so gently laid upon the sprawling boulevards, the temple oases, the children in monk attire, the people genuinely happy to be there, to be who they are, to have suffered and survived, to be quietly joyous in the most loud way.   

Ooooh, this was not what I expected from Asia but it was what was told would happen to me and now I feel it.  This life to me is normal; no expectations, living all the time not just when you feel like it - casual, peaceful, cultural.  Going back home will be a challenge to say the least.  This is the place where my heart grew up and allowed itself to feel.