Sunday, August 28, 2011

Welcome Home

This is the last posting meant for an immediate audience. After this one, I'll continue to write, but I'll take you off the emailing list and won't get anymore notices. You're free to visit the site whenever you want, but I'm I'll be writing less frequent.



Noah and I are sitting in the local coffeehouse of Columbus. He's grading papers, I'm looking busy. I'm trying to write things these days. I'm trying to think back on the past few months and find a coherent way to sum them up without being too. . . trite.

I feel many things when I think back on Thailand. One word doesn't come to mind, of course. It's all to grand for just one word. I can't even grasp one emotion that dealt with that event. It's too monumental for me to trivialize into a neat package.

How was Thailand? People ask me and and I still don't know what to say. There's that pause, punctuated with me thinking for a tactful way to respond. Good?

How was your trip? People ask me and I get a little angry. I did not take a trip, I want to say. I sacrificed time, I left my husband after a month of being married. I gave to children who didn't mind taking all of my energy. I cried and I was scared. I cried and I was lonely. I did not take a trip, for that would imply I went on a week long vacation to the nice parts of Bangkok, stepped into the seedy places, for sport and came home with the rest of the tourists.

How was Thailand? Good? Awful? Trying?A key player in saving my soul? It was all of those things and many more. There were wonderful times that I can recount, filled with a lot of happiness and excitement. I had friends who helped keep the loneliness and anxiety at bay. I had a solid group of friends from back home that kept steady contact with me and who always had time for me. My husband and his parents, my sister, Evan and Evelyn, were blessings on the days I didn't feel like leaving my house and I needed someone to talk to.

The small experiences that I had that showed me a new way of thinking, made me loosen up, pulled me out of myself--- those were blessings as well. Interactions, food, odd Thai quirks will always make me remember the wonderful culture that I was fortunate enough to experience. I will always look back on my time with happiness and pride. I hope to tell my children about my bravery, how I stepped outside of what I once deemed comfortable, normal and became a citizen of the world. I want to encourage them to do the same.