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| Me on my 23rd birthday at the BOH Tea Plantation in the Cameron Highlands! |
I'm getting the point where I am just constantly exhausted. A couple weeks ago I was on the phone with my mom and I was giving her the run-down of my schedule for the coming months and I realized that I am just incredibly busy. Since I last posted, I have taken trips to Laos and Cambodia, which were both beautiful and exciting countries. I have taken road trips to help out with other English camps, sent a weekend on the beach with a friend from college, and I turned twenty three! In the near future I have a scuba-diving trip in the Perhentian Islands planned and a vacation in Thailand about three weeks after that. In between I have (another) new class schedule to adjust to, student programming to plan and assist with, jobs to apply for, and the task of moving out of my house to return to the USA because this grant is over in two months! Oh and I somehow have to find the time to plan a multinational-two-week-post-grant backpacking trip with a friend from college who is normally sleeping when I am awake (thanks a lot 15 hour time difference).
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| Young monks receiving offerings at sunrise in Luang Prabang, Laos |
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| Elephants at the National Elephant Reserve in Pahang, Malaysia |
I am by no means complaining. I realize what a blessing it has been for me to be able to experience all that I have in the past 8 months. I am so excited for what these next 2 months have in store but I am also worried about how difficult it will be to adjust back to life in the USA. I have decided to move back to St. Louis, my hometown, because I have been longing to be somewhere I already intimately know. And for whatever problems St. Louis is dealing with (and the USA as a whole) it will always be the first city I loved and I hope that in this next year I will learn to love it even more while living there as an adult. But honestly what concerns me is that I am not giving myself anytime to process what this experience has meant, how it has changed me, and how I will use it in my future. I know people will ask me “How was Malaysia? What was your time like there?” and I am increasingly realizing I am not quite sure how to answer that question. Often, I am not sure how I feel here. Outside of emotions that exist on the ends of the spectrum, I do not really know what my “normal” feeling here is. Maybe it is because normal is so incredibly strange that my perception is skewed, or because I just can’t really find the words. I blame this partially on my dwindling vocabulary and partially on the fact that many parts of this experience (especially how I feel about it) is simply inexplicable. I think of the saying “to know where you are going you’ve got to know where you have been” and just where have I been this year? I can point it out on a map, trace the paths I have taken with a pencil and a ruler but I can’t really zoom in on the person to person (and person to organization) interactions that actually define where I am. How can i adjust to a new normal (which is really an old normal) if this current normal (which is still such a new normal) isn’t normal but I feel normal in it but not normal but that’s normal….isn’t it? I don’t know. Now, I'm sure, we are all confused. But at least (maybe?) you are starting to see what I am dealing with.
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| Kuang Si Waterfall in Luang Prabang, Laos |
A lot of people I have talked to about the end of the grant have been thinking about reflection about, decompressing from, and figuring out a way to give a synopsis for this experience too. And I know it will help at least a bit to gather together as one cohort for the final time before we leave. It’ll be the last time I am in this community of Fulbright Malaysia ETAs who understand (more than anyone else will) what I am saying when I say it or don't say it, or can’t. For me, that will be the first time I stop and really sit with the fact that this time in my life is over. And while l am so excited to be heading back to the USA leaving is going to be so hard. I have made myself comfortable in situations where, a year ago, I would not have conceived it was possible. I have put in so much physical and emotional work and earned spaces for myself where there previously weren’t any. I have adventured around the country and the region and my house actually feels like home now. There are still so many things that I want and need to do before my time is over so I just honestly do not have time to really think about how things are ending. I don’t really know how to think about things ending either. All I know is I supposed to be looking forward to my next steps after this and that means soon ill have to break down this experience to consumable parts for both myself and those around me and I don’t think I can. At this point I know I can’t and I don’t see how two months left in my community and school and 3 days of programming is going to change that very much. So I guess this is all to say I don’t know how Malaysia has been. I am still digesting and making sense of it for myself. And until I do I don’t know how I can use this experience to move forward in my life. How can I consciously integrate what I have learned and experienced here in order to progress in my career and educational aspirations? Is it even supposed to be a conscious integration? Ugh. I just don’t know. And i’m too tired and too busy to figure it out. I guess that is what the holidays are for.
Ten weeks until I am home. I cannot believe it.
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| Angkor Wat Temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia |
