I left Chiang Mai yesterday. I refuse to say that I left Chiang Mai for the last time. Instead I will say that I left Chiang Mai for the last time on this Asia stint.
As for now I am in Indonesia for 2 weeks. Spending time with family on this side of the world before I make my way over to the other.
It's hard to know what exactly to say as I think about Chiang Mai. I don't think it has sunk in that I don't live there anymore. I am no longer Ajarn and my apartment now belongs to someone else.
Leaving is bittersweet. In one sense I am ready to go home. To speak English, to see all the people who have over the last year only become voices via skype or words on my gchat. On the other hand it is hard to say goodbye to the first place you felt like a grown up, the place you first had a job and a rent to pay on time, electricity bills and work clothes.
I will miss ancient women Thai dancing in the market place, the smell of dessert waffles coming from ever street stall, fried eggs on all my food and driving my motorbike through crowded streets. I will miss countless things that I won't even realize I miss until some March morning in New York City when it's 33 and raining and all I want is noodles from a street stall and a morning hot enough for 3 showers before noon.
The idea that Chiang Mai is now just a memory does not sit easy. But at some point everything becomes a memory and the only agency we are left with is the ability to live, in those moments, as if all of it is forever.
"But at some point everything becomes a memory and the only agency we are left with is the ability to live, in those moments, as if all of it is forever." Beautifully said, mi hermana. XO.
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