You Gotta Get Away Sometimes

This morning - I'm holding up in Bang Tao! I'm staying in the hotel and I ain't never leaving!

....check time is 12:00 p.m.

Okay, so I'll be here until 12:00 p.m. I'm jamming CHERUB and clinging to vacation mode, mulling over the last week with my mom. I said goodbye to her late last night as her flight ended up being at 1:30 in the morning. It was a normal type of goodbye - we had a good time bullshitting about politics and going over the week of Thailand activities - I think it helped me be okay with her leaving - the kind of nonchalant way that we handled her departure. Not that I was going to cry about it, but I did feel a little emotional/funk-like as the day came to a close. We had spent a fantastic day exploring some of the islands as part of a snorkeling tour and after getting back from the Phi Phi islands, we enjoyed evening sun downers on the beach, followed by a fantastic dinner - listening to the waves crash and watching lanterns rise up into the night sky. It was pretty awesome.

 My mom and the sunset from Bang Tao.

Having my mom in Thailand - visiting for a full week - was absolutely amazing. It was incredible being able to share this part of my life with her and I know that she enjoyed it tremendously. It was in her last couple of hours here that she mused, "What if I just sent an e-mail to work, explaining that my flight was grounded because of the floods, and stayed another week?"  I laughed and exclaimed, "Now you know why I've been here for almost a year!"

Her trip to Phuket was too short, but even during the small window of time we had, I was forced to confront some of the realities of life outside of vacation. However hard I have tried to ignore that stuff, as I mentioned briefly in the last post, it has been a difficult year and these things haven't gone away. Perhaps I'll be an adult and delve into that a little deeper in the future, but I'm feeling like the brash way that I threw the truth of my parents separation out into the internet world demonstrates my inability to start discussing it fully. Yet, I am happy that I was honest about it. I am angry. I am saddened. I am struggling. I am aware that this strife in my family has profoundly impacted me, even before the formalities of separation came to fruition last November, and continues to influence my life with new tests and lessons. Talking about it is helping, however, and I am relieved that my mom and I could start talking openly about the complications of life and all of the rest.

I am grateful for my mom. I'm grateful for the fact that as tumultuous as our relationship has been, we are growing both in ourselves and in our relationship. Today, I'm holding up in this hotel room - perhaps attempting to hang on to the last little bits of our week together - perhaps trying to preserve the feeling of having Mom around. The thing is, I feel safe here - surrounded by the love we share and I don't want to go.