Wow. It has been quite some time since I’ve written. December was a blur, but I’m back. Back to the web world, back to the blog world, back to Chiang Mai. It’s strange you know? I expected to feel like a fish out of water going home after being away, but truthfully, nothing really changes. The people who loved you still love you. Your room is still your room. Your pillows are just as soft. Well, sometimes your brother grows ten inches and suddenly sprouts a thicket of dark fuzz he’s calling a mustache. And occasionally your father develops something of a social life and your mother learns to take a break and breathe every once in a while. Stuff like that. But otherwise, things are pretty much the same, just as you left them seven months ago.
It’s being back that’s strange, the part that for so many months has begun to make sense, suddenly unravels, the very fabric threatening to tear. Why are you getting on a plane to travel literally to the other side of the world? Why are you cranking, kicking, pumping in vain to get a two-bit second-hand motorbike to start? Why are you deserting hot water showers, meals that don’t involve rice, and weather that actually changes every so often to come back to… to come back to what exactly? That’s what I asked myself as I hopped on the first of five planes back to this place. That’s what I asked myself as I clambered into a tuk tuk outside of Chiang Mai International Airport. What am I doing here? (A little depressing, no?)
Then I got that damn bike to start and went whirring down the highway, the warm air on my arms and cheeks. Then I saddled up with my copious bags and papers and strode into a classroom amidst giggles (yes, college students still giggle) and noticed the “Welcome Back!” sign written in highlighter and hanging from my podium. Then I stepped into a little bar with international football (soccer) games in full gear, Europeans cheering, Americans tucked away at the rear, me clanking bottles with some of my closest compadres in this tiny town of a city. But it was when I called my father, tears in my eyes, desperate to cling to some shred of sanity, to find a method to my madness and a reason for the growing doubts that hung over me like a petulant cloud in rainy season, then and only then did I start to see. “It takes a lot to be there,” he said, the Skype connection struggling to carry his words to me. “You know, not everyone’s out there doing what you’re doing. It’s hard. Very hard. You're far away, but you’re making it work. That’s all that really matters.” I couldn’t tell if it was the connection fading or his voice: “I’m proud of you.”
Going back home will always be going back home, you know? Home is the place where my parents are, where my brother stays, where the people I love will always love me back—- my grandmother dutifully reading this blog, my aunt writing me snailmail letters from 10,000 miles away, my Visi chicas who I know will never leave my side no matter how far I stray, my cousins, my uncles, my people. My home. Yes, going back will mean precisely what it has meant these past few years of college; it will mean all of that till I’m wrinkled in the face and gray in the hair. But returning to Chiang Mai is something different. It’s not about leaving home and the place where I am loved. It’s about coming back to the place where I belong. And I think for the moment, it’s where I’m supposed to be.
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