Monday in Siem Reap
Being back here gives the mornings to just go. Often the writing takes over while I sit at some coffee spot. I watched a few of the vloggers that live or retired here. I can usually take about 10 minutes of them before I head off to music. I’m happy to see people discussing living here. What they find. How their lives go. It gives others the ability to peek inside a different world.
When I left America about 10 years ago I had no idea where I’d end up. I just wandered around for years until my daughter in Florida asked me to visit her. That year seemed suitable to end the time in Manila and see an old friend then I would fly on from there to Hong Kong and then Narita and back. Everything changed because of geology and weather. Philippines is located on the Pacific Rim so they have very active geological forces. Earthquakes and volcanoes. Not to be outdone they also had some extreme weather. I had planned this longer stay there but like usual on a whim I cancelled it all and flew to Malaysia.
This was like the entirety of my life for the years. I had no idea where I was going so I just went. This had been a dream of the years working in Silicon Valley and feeling life and issues at home were drowning me out. So when I left I left.
This is a major point in things for me. I did not even decide to stay in Cambodia when I got back in 2022. The idea then was to spend “some time” wandering around again. Most likely I would have ended for longer stays in Vietnam somewhere. Then Vietnam was opening and they had 30 day tourist visas. The basic idea was to go for 29 days somewhere and cross over to Laos or Malaysia or wherever. Thailand was not in the running. Even then I did not care for the place.
I bring all this up to just tell you this Monday morning in Siem Reap it is okay to not have a destination. Maybe the main thing from living in America so long was to simply leave. I did not need a plan to go. This seemed perfect since for two decades in IT I had developed plans and schedules. Timelines and tasks. Milestones and deliverables. The relief felt leaving all that was palpable. Like a weight removed.
What I could not face was just adding another weight of a place that would become “home”. I did not want a home. I wanted next. Next could be back or forward. Left or right. Mexico or at one point Panama.
I’m writing all this to tell you it’s okay and sometimes preferred to have no clear idea what you want. To just go. The going becomes the thing to me. The eminent feeling that a step did not need to go in some direction or in some pace.
Of course all this changed in 2023 when I met my wife in Cambodia. Suddenly all the steps seemed both connected and arbitrary. Like my connections and my time spent here or there was pointing at something. I could not see it then. I would not have accepted it then. I needed the space. Moments to look and not decide.
Then my wife
And then the thing I had never imagined happening so happen. But it seemed like the years just going were all lining me up in some haphazard fashion to the evening drinking at Beatnik bar. Meeting her. Knowing soon after this was going to be it.
Not the end of wandering. Never that. Just a seminal change in the who and how. Consider it when you watch some expat extolling the virtues of some haven. Mostly remember no place is that perfect. These are not utopias we live in. They are imperfect worlds. Worlds created that give you different. Perhaps more. Sometimes maybe less.
Meanwhile I love my wife this Monday. And when we had the times in Battambang and when she whispers at night she loves me before putting those cold feet on me.
That’s love too folks.
