2019: First Quarter; take me out coach

I haven't written in awhile. Honestly didn't want to sit down and format on my laptop, let alone unpack my thoughts. My eyes always feel burnt, my body is exhausted, and I've already used my allotted chunk of thought for the day. I won't write everything, I'm beyond trying to remember every detail, place, and face. I'll repost what I wrote when rhetoric hit me at every moment outside of the ones where I am in front of a screen...

January. 

I re-centered myself. I logged off. I did a lot of yoga and prioritized sleep. 

I started making art again but I was unsatisfied. I was numb, unaware I was nauseous with homesickness.

January 18

Isn’t it funny when your shadow of reality - the one standing right next to you all this time - slaps you in the face and you have the gall to be surprised. It just hit me that one day I won’t live in Bangkok. That one day, in the relatively near future, I won’t be “the girl that lives across the world.” I’ll just be your neighbor that you’ve seen every morning for the past x amount of years. The fact that I live here will be just a reminiscent conversation topic that I’ll joke about, questioning if it really did happen. The novelty. The attraction. The mystery about me will vanish and dissipate into a more relatable, indistinguishable reality.

January 21

Potted plants are just like caged animals.

The shortest way home is the longest road.

If I go back to California I’m going straight to San Luis Obispo and I’m driving to the top of that Cuesta Ridge mountain and watch the sun go down over Perfumo Canyon. I’ll go to Laguna and swim in the emerald water and run down Montaña De Oro’s dunes. Dunes!!! I’ll spend a whole day in the Oceano Dunes. Don’t bother looking for me, I’ll die there happily. You’ll find me that night asleep in a booth at Frog and Peach or in the corner on his lap. I want a High St sandwich, a nap with my friends at Pirates, and to watch the sun go down on someone’s roof.

When something is good, really good, and you have that moment of realization, pause and acknowledge it. Appreciate it. And you’ll remember it forever.

I’m looking up photos of California like they’re my ex.

February. 

I fasted. I scaled rocks and held onto nothing but freedom and adventure, not thinking of what it would be like to fall from this height. I won't lie, the risk was electrifying. I molted out of an era and tried out my new wings, loving how the wind felt on a motorcycle. 

February 2

Throughout my life things have alternated as the main priority, the top card. The task at hand that’s always front of mind. It’d be devastation if it was in any way affected. Most usually being school or work. Very rarely it has been God. What does that say about my soul and intent?

February 5

I didn’t eat for 5 days

My heart spoke louder and her hunger was fed first

Taking bites of the portions of love set out so quickly

I slept better

My skin smoothed and my hair grew long

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March. 

The monsoon season came right on time: heavy and sudden. Just kidding they were my tears. 

Public meltdowns become a social force field and frequent event. I jumped on trains to get away from alone time with myself. I sat down with God to chat. 

I started singing again. I'm not numb anymore, I feel everything. 

March 1

Sauté onion, garlic, shallots in butter

Add fish sauce

Soy sauce

Brown sugar

Salt

Thai spice

Lots of lime

Cilantro

Baby corn

Coconut milk

Broccoli

Asparagus

White wine if want

Cook chicken in butter

Serve with lime, butter, pepper, salt, & couscous

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March 3

If I could relive February over I’d live forever. A month of seeing places and feeling things. Spending too much money and not getting enough rotti or sleep. Hard questions, no brainers, rock climbing 101, all whilst riding a motorcycle. I finally feel like I can feel the strength from my growing pains. 
On the road to self discovery, the shortest way home is the longest road

March 9

Ahhhhh another moment I’d rather not look away from but would hate to not take note of.

The first golden light streaming through the open windows of a train cracking and rocking over steel tracks and through a banana leaf framed neighborhood. I have a slight headache from an unsuspecting small cup of coffee. But isn’t that just Thailand? Big surprises in small packages? Thai women, tiger balm, Thai chili, etc.

I am unphased. In awe. But unsurprised by the quirkiness of this country, these people. I love them: my new normal. Why did vietnam shake me? It surprised me.

Where can I go next that will surprise me?

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I think I’m going to tell this story until I hate the sound of my own voice, but it’s important to share and remember.

My friend was once a General Manager for a Chiang Mai hotel. She hired a girl who soon came to her telling her how under-qualified she felt in her job. How she knew there were more educated, qualified, and talented people out there and wondered why she picked her.

My friend told her, “Ducks can swim, but they’re not very good at it. Ducks can fly, but they’re not very good at it either. Ducks are not good at one thing - they are no swan. But they are pretty good at a little bit of everything. They are skilled. They are lively. They are prao-plow. It is important you have both. You are a beautiful duck and that it why you got the job."

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March 10

I didn’t picture myself like this at 22. 
I didn’t know what to expect exactly, I just thought I’d be under a familiar roof around people I’d known my whole life on the arm of a man I’d known for a reasonable amount of time doing household work or something else that made me feel validated. I never dreamt of Asia. I’m mean, going to New York alone used to give me anxiety. Quite honestly, everything gave me anxiety,... until I moved here and did everything but what I thought I could. I have a vivid memory of a man telling me I’d be without a job if pursuing my major. Instead, I snagged a spot on a pioneered profession. I didn’t know that would happen. And once I left home, I didn’t realize how much deeper I could breathe when I left the comfort of a crowded room, or realize how much more room was in my head when just my thoughts echoed back. 
A little while ago someone asked how I was doing. I was taken back to Cass in college. Walking around, over-caffeinated and dazed, telling myself that my head was much bigger than the tiny home my brain felt stuffed into. I felt trapped and kind of just accepted that as my maximum capacity.

So, how am I? I feel like my brain is standing in the warehouse of my mind. I feel the tender roots of “home” under an unfamiliar roof around friends I’ve just met without any arm to hold but my own to strengthen, doing something that makes me feel quite validated.

March 31

I have this sneaking suspicion that the most beautiful places in the world are in some land located in someone’s locked lips. The more I discover those places the less I want to share my own.

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Be kind. Be tender-hearted. Don’t be malicious or greedy or proud. The loving person that moves within the spirit, that’s a spiritual person. God does not see you through actions, but by faith, by heart. That is why it is better to be a prostitute than a proud, selfish, cold church-goer. But obviously it is better to be neither.

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April.

I am okay, I am loved, I am strong enough to do anything put out before me.

April 1 

Just when I think my time spent has peaked, I discover even more hidden corners of the world and myself. As I look back, I realize I kept hearing the same phrase in various forms: “you don’t need to understand everything.” but you must never stop seeking.