Leaving

August 31, 2011

Looking back now as to why I’ve left Mae Sot, I feel a pang of sadness and nostalgia.  I know I left at the right time; before all my friends left and I was the last person to go (I hate being the last person to go) but at the same time I wish I could have had the clarity that I have now- sitting in a hotel room in the beautiful Hoi An, Vietnam with a new friend and the beginnings of a new outlook.  This isn’t anything special; it’s just clearer and lighter, like stepping out of a shower.  It’s rejuvenating and, I guess I’m free to say this now, exciting.  I am open to new things and the part of my brain that was closed off, for whatever reason, is now creating pathways to new openings. 

I am hurt, yes, but healing. 

I left amazing people who did incredible things.  I left friends who I may never see again, I left the feeling of new butterflies in my stomach, I left my luxurious flat overlooking the town, I left the most amazing organization in which I was able to help (rather limitedly) put in a crisis hotline in a community that really needed it.  I left a group of loved ones, nights where we sat around and drank whiskey and formed even deeper bonds.  I left drinking beer with my friends on my balcony, laughing uncontrollably, new adventures every day, planning little (and big) trips.  I left long and painful conversations about leaving the best time in our lives for perhaps better, or perhaps more difficult times to come.  I left memories of the raucous, hellishly amazing Full Moon Party (never again) and the freedom of riding my bicycle on the peaceful, trembling, emotional streets of Mae Sot.  All to come back to an ideal that shattered.  And now I am here doing what I love, being who I love, picking up the pieces and finally, finally arranging them where I want to put them.  I would give anything to go back to where I was before and to have that certainty of love lost and found again, to have the feeling of a full heart.  But it’s not there and reality is a painful thing to recover from. Vietnam knows that and is showing me how to do it best.  I have new plans that are slowly forming;  my mind is shifting and I see things now  I never thought I was able to do without this love that I used to think needed to be in place.  I see my happiness, that little blue light o’ mine, as being mine.  My happiness with others, for others, can be separate.  I can let that happen.  I can carry my happiness with me and let it shine, wherever I go, with whomever I’m with, but most of all with myself.  Such a blissful revelation!  Looking back, leaving Mae Sot was a necessity to get me here.   I miss my friends, my soul loves, and the place I called home for a little while.  It was the beginning of this great and magnificent dust-settling.