Stronger?

How I feel, how I feel, how I feel.

I feel the mood swings of a teenager. I feel hopeful that the ups and downs will give me rippling muscles, just like the ups and downs of sit ups or push ups. I feel sore, just like the ups and downs of aforementioned exercises.

Thailand. Sometimes I wonder what is different? Am I really even in another country? People are people everywhere, and they all eat food and most of them have children at some point, and the toilets are an adjustment and people try to charge me more money for things because I'm a noob, but they do that in the U.S. too. I'm just less of a noob there. The houses are smaller generally speaking, and all the stores are outside, even when they are inside. The dominant religion is different and the language as well, and even the alphabet, making every road sign a work of art, and a mystery unless also written in English.

Wifi is hard to come by, as is good coffee.

My friend Koi asked me today how I have been changed by my trip. I'm still working through that. It's all these small things that don't necessarily come together, things that I'm hoping will make me stronger but at the moment I'm just a little sore.

Out of a month of traveling, it is only in the last week that all the challenges have arisen. A motorbike accident with road rash and stitches. I feel I have dealt with that quite well (although the nurses here are NOT GENTLE.) A lost camera, which was lost once before for 2 years, and really I am not sad for its absence, just sad because I thought three times in the last day "I should upload my pictures" and I did not. And the heartache that so often accompanies my tendency to fall in love with inaccessible people.

How have I been changed? We shall see. But I think it is in the strength I feel in my legs. Not physically. It's this rooted feeling that connects down to the ground, and up to the rest of me, that reminds me that I can deal with these situations, and I can deal with change, and I can deal with disappointment, and I can make my way across a country and around the world, and hopefully back. And I can make a damn good run on sentence. I don't have a photograph of how I feel, because I lost my camera, but really that's an excuse because I do have some pictures, I'm just lazy and prefer to write.

I feel strong, and aware of my weaknesses. I am proud of my accomplishments, and willingness to go in the direction of my fear. I feel a little more alone and a little less lonely. I feel a little less alone and a little more independent. I feel quite nervous for the return to album releasing/massage frenzy world, and the ups and downs that come with it, but I think I'm getting pretty toned over here. I look forward to using that strength back in the U.S.