Finding "Me"

4 Days.

My friend, Tim, and I were sitting around chit-chatting about my upcoming trip home and Tim turned to me and inquired about my feelings of readiness regarding leaving Thailand. “Four days,” he said. “Four days until you head home. Do you remember what you were doing four days before you came to Thailand?”

I thought for a second. Yeah, holy shit. Four days before leaving for Thailand I was exhausted, emotionally exhausted.

Here comes some memory lane shit...

Four days before leaving for Thailand, I was dealing with my parents and the divorce/separation shenanigans for the first time. It was wintertime. Mid December, I packed up my car and moved myself from Flagstaff to Los Alamos to spend a couple of days with my family before I shipped off to Thailand. What I was confronted with when I arrived in New Mexico, was a reality bomb that tore through any shred of holiday spirit. Though Christmas has never really resonated well with my family, that year's festivities were devoid of any merriment as it was my first time seeing my parents since my Dad had moved out. Four days before Thailand, I gave my Dad a letter I had written to him in which I poured out my heart. It's hard telling your parents they need to be different, but it's harder when you realize the futility of the effort in the same step. At the same time, I was trying to consolidate my life to fit into my backpack and leave that broken place. Though looking forward to the next adventure, I was riddled with guilt over the whole enterprise. Thailand felt like my golden ticket, but I left for the train station without my Dad and it felt like a betrayal of our entire family-ness. Never have I embarked on a big move without him there; I didn't leave for college without him and I never imagined that I would ever have to pick and choose my cheering section as I embarked for Thailand. He was always there. Excluding him from goodbyes was like pulling on a scratchy over sized sweater, heavy with divorce, and trying to figure out how to make it fit. I felt like I was drowning. I dyed my hair brown and asked my mom to cut it inches from my scalp. I wanted to blend in. I didn't want to be noticed; I didn't want to be seen; I didn't want to be a blonde girl traveling on my own. I wanted to disappear. I was running. I was nervous, no, I was scared as hell. I wanted to get out of New Mexico and away from my family, but I didn't know what awaited me on the other side of the world. I had romanticized Thailand for years, but I didn't know if hiding in South East Asia could help me find light in all of the darkness. I just wanted to stop hurting. I wanted a new beginning. I wanted to be able to find out who I was and what I was made of. I wanted to get back to me. I needed to get back to me.

When the bottom falls out of your brown paper bag world, it's hard to get all the pieces back in order. I think it is best captured by Nick Hornby in A Long Way Down: “Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.” I was trying to get it all back together – organized and situated, but I felt as though I had been lost. And, perhaps, I really had. I had been pushed aside during an attempt to be the parent, to be the bigger person, to be the one they could lean on, to be the big sister, the friend, the confidant, the councilor, the mediator, the strength, the hope, the optimist, the rock, the foundation, the embodiment of dreams everyone was giving up on, the protector, the brave face - the everything.

When I sit down and think about the pain that I was in four days before Thailand, I think – “no wonder I am a little nervous about going home!” Arriving in Phuket, I put on a shiny little smile and tried to choke back sadness, stifling emotions with every forced laugh and carefree action, but there was a darkness that sat heavy and cold with me. That darkness still emerges when I think about the goodbyes shared with my mom and my sister as I boarded the sleeper train to Los Angeles, after that hell of a Christmas. I still feel the heartbreak of leaving my sister for a year and a half, of her not talking to me when I left, of her being angry with me for leaving, of the guilt of leaving her. It remains an open wound. My sister, the only one who could understand what I was feeling as we cried in each others' arms on December 25^th instead of opening presents, seemed to resent me for leaving, and I didn't blame her. Feeling waves of despair, desperation, and loneliness, we had sat holding hands and fighting back kiddie pool sized tears that streamed down our frostbitten cheeks. That winter was a cold one and I was warmed then only by her presence and the comfort, or relief rather, of watching us get to, what looked like, rock bottom. The whole, “the only way left to go is up” kind of deal, was meager optimism, but I clung to it regardless. Now, I've learned that rock bottom, like Dante's inferno, has many faces and levels, and though I'm afraid I've only seen a fraction of that reality, of that hell, I came to Thailand with a golden ticket, a love that lay guarded, but a commitment to prevail, and I have.

I spent a year and a half trying to find my smile. I spent a year and a half trying to find myself. I spent a year and half sorting through the changes in me and trying to put all the pieces back in the right spot. It has taken some time, but four days before leaving Thailand, I'm realizing that I'm a different person.

I still feel a sense of nervousness. I still feel apprehension and fear regarding being back in that place where I will be faced with emotional insecurities and struggles once again, however, I know I am stronger now. I no longer feel the impulse to run – to bolt before I feel anything. It's time I started feeling.

Now, I know my trip back home is going to be emotional. I know that going home is going to be intense, in many senses, and that it will force me to feel – blah! Yes, feel feelings. However, I'm ready for it. It took me long enough – a year and a half – but, I'm finally beginning to accept what I can not change and to grow stronger in the face of this adventure's challenges. Though sometimes I don't understand the reason for the negative and trying times, I believe that things happen for a reason – to teach us. As long as we move forward from each trial and tribulation with the willingness to learn and a commitment to accepting life's lessons, I believe we will be okay. I love this passage in Shantaram -

“The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Ever life, every love, ever action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.” - Lin (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts)

Four days before leaving for Thailand, and the bottom was falling out of my world. But, over a year and a half down the road, I'm ready. I'm strong; I'm capable and I'm still standing, world! I remember boarding that plane, scared, nervous, and unsure about the choices that had gotten me to LAX - bound for Asia, but I was running and I thought I just needed something “new” to be okay. What I thought I'd find was a world free of pain and hurt – a clean slate and a fresh start. I didn't find that. I didn't find a “do over” button or something that could sever my heart strings, but I guess it was never really about that anyway. What I found, instead, was that only in the darkest night can you see stars; that in our darkest times, there is hope, that the chance at a new beginning was already in me, and that I was made of a lot more than I thought. I spent so much time running from those four days before Thailand, but on the other side of this epic adventure, I've gained something more valuable than I would have ever dreamed...

I've found me.