I think it's finally time for me to start writing about Thailand. More than writing: thinking. Reminiscing. Feeling.
I've been back home in Lancaster for almost six months, and for the most part, I've settled in.
Settled.
Everyone asks me that. "Are you settled?"
What does that mean, exactly? Moved back into my room? Yes. Met the new cat my parents adopted? Oh yes.
I've eaten all the food I desperately craved (avocados and salsa and mashed potatoes and strong coffee ) and I think my back is finally healing from a year of sleeping on the Worlds Shittiest Mattress.
When it was time for me to leave Thailand, I was incredibly ready to go home. It was a rough year. An adventurous, fascinating, beautiful one, but tough all the same. I was tired of looking different from everyone else; sick of the stares and language barrier and mosquitos and fried rice.
I wanted comfort. I wanted to be able to talk freely in my native tongue and not have to simplify my words and sentences. I wanted to drive my jeep instead of push my wobbly old bike around town. I wanted to be able to straighten my hair without it immediately frizzing, and wear makeup without instantly sweating it off. But most of all, I wanted to not be lonely anymore.
I was so ready to see my friends and family, not just on a screen, but actually feel their hugs and share a drink.
When I boarded the plane bound for JFK in New Dehli, I was so tired. I was exhausted down to my bones. It's a kind of weariness I can't really describe. I was not sad at all. When my parents met me at the arrival gate, I left without looking back.
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I remember driving with my mom a few days after my return, and looking at awe at the stretches of lush lawns that passed by. "Everything is so...green," I said. Grass, in the sense of a lawn, does not exist in Thailand. Nor do the massive two and three story houses attached to these yards. Thai houses are almost always one story high. No stairs. I don't know why this is.
My first weeks back, through May and into June, were blissful. I had forgotten how easy life at home is. And I don't mean just my particular home; I mean America in general. It is clean. There are traffic laws and waiters who actually give good service. Despite what people think, life is good here.
I also noticed that I had just gotten "tougher" in a sense; or perhaps just less concerned about trivial things. I marveled at how easily grossed out and annoyed Americans (and most first world people) are. For instance: a friend and I needed to pee on a roadtrip, and had to use a port-a-potty on the side of the road. I hopped in and did my business without a thought, but she struggled to use it because of what she thought were completely disgusting conditions. Sure, it didn't smell great, but compared to the bathrooms I used when traveling in Thailand and India, it was practically a palace. When another friend shrieked after seeing a small cockroach, I laughed, remembering the massive ones that scuttled across my feet in Hua Hin. On another day, a family member scolded their dog for barking, and apologized profusely for its "bad behavior." "I've been chased by packs of growling street dogs," I said. "This is nothing."
Simply put, there are few things that bother me anymore.
Yet, as my home comforts become the new norm, I feel strange.
I didn't think about Thailand very much when I first returned. I stuffed my momentos away. I didn't want to think about my students, or my favorite restaurant, or the smell of bug spray. But now, six months later, I can't stop. I want to think about that year. I need to.
But I guess that's for the next post.
Erin
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