Check in

Hi.

How are you?

I feel like I haven't really been keeping you all updated at all. I mean, what on earth have I been up to? How am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

Currently, I'm sitting in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. In yet another internet cafe, around me are a bunch of little Cambodans that sound exactly like my little brother as tey all play video games. It's pretty blazing hot hanging out 100 degrees fareneiht pretty much all day, only barely cooling off when it gets dark. I've got a lovely layer of sweat covering me pretty much all the time.

When I look back on the last month and a half, I find myself wondering what exactly it is that I've been up to. And considering I've been in this part of the world for a good six weeks, I feel like I should have done more up until now. A two week homestay, three days of trekking, four days of volunteering at an orphanage, one week at a Dharma Center, one week travel to Siem Reap, going through Sukothai and Korat, visiting Ankor Wat two days in a row, touring an non profit in Siem Reap and then making my way to Phnom Penh, visiting S21 and the Killing Fields.

But that laundry list of moments leaves out a lot. And I need to keep reminding myself that sometimes the best moments come from dancing late at night in a courtyard with Cambodian kids my age working to make their life look up, or playing spoons with a bunch of laughter loving novice monks, or looking at haunting pictures of the dead, or getting a glimpse of the joys of having a sister. The good times and good memories, the thins that feel so immediate and important, so often go hand in hand with the people that I've spent time with, so often are held in a single moment, held up in the air, reverberating. Those moments, I suspect, can never be held on to.

There so much to talk about. So much to reflect on. So much  I want dearly to hold on to.

A few days ago, one of my fellow travelors said to me, "I feel like I haven't heard anything about your travels, do you mind telling me about them on the busride tomorrow?

"Sure...but," I replied, trying to think of what to tell her, "it's hard to talk about. Hard to explain."

How can I begin to put words to Angkor Wat? Or my time at the Dharma center? Or what I've learned in the last 48 hours about the heatbreaking history of Cambodia? These are things I have begun to write about, only to feel inadequate, staring at an open journal.

It is easy to talk about the things I wished had been different, the things I never saw or never did, the people  wished I had talked more with. It's easy to give you a play by play of where I've been, to review things, tell you about border crossings, and funny tuk tuk drivers, to talk as if I know these countries, to give advice.

 But it's harder to talk about the good things, the memories that create a sort of golden-glow feeling in my chest. The important moments and lessons I will fall back on in rough times. For now, it is almost enough for me to know that they are there. I only worry that in the months that come, back home with people I've always known, back at school, where things might feel like "normal life," I will forget the powerful imediacy of those moments, forget the way my heart has felt like it's been wrapped up tight and squeezed, forget the laughter and tears, and new ideas, forget the new dreams and new plans.

That has always been my fear. Even before all this would start, that in coming back I'd lose everything I've gained elsewhere. And that's why I've been journaling and blogging and talking to people.

But right now, I lean back in my little plastic chair, note the stickiness of the sweat on my skin and remind myself that perhaps the most important part of this entire year is what I've done: Taken a year to myself, crazy and imperfect and frustrating as it has been at times, I wouldn't give it up.