This trip is drawing to a close, the curtains tightly choking out the Thailand light as I return, headfirst, into reality.
Phuket and Krabi were incredible; Hua Hin may be one of our favorite places we’ve ever been. But this post isn’t about them. This one is about me.
I’ve always aged too quickly, racing through life as though the finish line is something anyone really wants to reach. I think, perhaps, morbidly, I busy myself to escape my own mortality. After all, the purpose of life is finding a purpose… right?
What Thailand has taught me is that you can travel, but your troubles travel with you. They are on your playlist, in your head, within your heart. Escape won’t fix broken, and travel may expand your horizons but it will never change the color of your sky.
Although it’s sure been a nice distraction.
You can outrun the grim reaper, but he will catch up eventually. Numb his influence with pills, pretend he isn’t there, act content with a salvation that may or may not be waiting. But we all, if we are lucky, grow old.
We all long for the earlier days of youth, whatever that is for each of us, when we were buoyant and naive and resilient. And this, folks, is how I arrived at my mid-life crisis at 28. I’ve always done things early.
I return to the poem I wrote at 19, ever aware of the problems I tote with me in my rush to grow up. I am nearly a decade older but the words are as true now as then. And as I wave goodbye to continent #4, the 15th bucket list item, and the country I’ve fallen in love with, allow me to wax poetic just once more. Then I promise I’ll get back to the usual tenor.
“I’m racing past while they remain still
Such is the curse of aging at will.
Clinging to branches, I’m soaring with leaves
Faster I go as they float in the breeze.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to me
I give the right sermon but forget what it means.
Wealth’s no obsession, and love I have found
But cursed is the life that forever gains ground.”
30 Before 30 