Being Bold

I am sitting at home after a long week of training, smelling the (cranberry sauce?) that my host sister is making for the Chinese New Year, and doing some reflecting.

These past few days have been the hardest so far. I'm dealing with some personal things that I knew I would have to deal with eventually. I was awake for most of last night, unsure of myself. I was missing home, missing the snow. And for the first time since being here, I felt alone. It was a strange feeling.

Before coming here, my incredible (incredible!) friend Abby gifted me with letters she collected from my friends. The letters should be opened under specific circumstances during my service (i.e. "Open when you need to laugh" or "Open when you miss home.") I'm not totally sure why, but something compelled me to open "Open when you need to make a big decision" from my good friend, Taylor. Of course, if you know Taylor, you know it was beautifully written. But the line that impacted me the most was "For a bold woman, I suggest a bold decision." I would use a lot of words to describe myself, but bold is not one of them.

This morning, I got up still feeling down. I biked to training, and was promptly greeted by my friends, my language teachers, and other staff. The language teachers had prepared several traditional Thai dances to show us, and it became this incredible distraction from my stress. Everyone was laughing and joking around. And then, to conclude their performance, they sang us a song. It was meant to be totally corny: they rewrote the lyrics to the Ed Sheeran song "Photograph." But the longer they sang, the more the audience grew quiet. You could feel people reflecting on their past month here, and it was no longer just a corny song. I started to feel tears run down my cheeks.

I sat there and thought long and hard about being here. And I thought how my sadness was not rooted in this place. It's not from the toothless old man who bikes with me to training on some mornings and smiles and talks to me, or the ducks that sit in the rice field and flap their wings, or the long conversations I have with my host family, or the laughter I share with other volunteers over lunch.

My sadness is from allowing my brain to be somewhere else. In places where there are things I cannot control or change. But my brain belongs here. Every part of me belongs here. I'm writing this post to say I've acknowledged this, and that I will not allow myself to forget it.

I have, indeed, made a "bold decision": To let myself move forward in this complicated, confusing, beautiful life I live in now. No looking back.

Here's to being bold <3