Home

This morning I arrived by train in Thung Song, the city that will be my home for a year. Before I boarded the train last night, I had to say goodbye to the most amazing people I have ever known. In just one whirlwind of a month, they became the closest friends I have ever had and together we made the best memories of our lives. So, despite the deceptive title, this post is all about them.

Bethany was my first friend in Thailand. She is the type of person that you meet and it only takes one conversation for you to feel like you’ve known her forever. She is clever, and thinks of brilliant things like pouring the alcohol into capped water bottles so that we can swim in the ocean and get drunk at the same time. She is reckless and daring. On the day I rode on the back of the motorcycle and stretched my arms out like wings to feel the wind, I felt a lot like Bethany. For a month, Bethany and I shared a room together, but yesterday she left Soi Sam Sam a few hours before me to move 18 hours away, so I hugged her tight and tried to hold back tears as I walked toward the wooden table and tried to forget how hard goodbyes are.

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Fuck it. That’s what Anais taught me. Insecurity is possibly my biggest fault, and after repeating those two words like a mantra every time insecurity tried to hold me back, I feel my true self surfacing more and more. For now, I only dance on tables and flirt with guys and feel completely free when I am drunk, but Anais taught me that the alcohol only frees the real me from its shell. Sometimes there won’t be Sang Som and Chang to let the girl trapped inside of me loose, but it won’t matter because she deserves to dance and flirt and be free no matter what. Thank you, Anais, for coaxing my true self out of her hiding place.

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Laura is so special and unique that it is hard for me to think of how to describe her and do her justice with my words. She is hilarious and her laugh is infectious. She tilts back her head and her blond curls shake and the pure joy on her face circulates around to everyone in seconds. I think my favorite memory with Laura is dancing our asses off together at The Blue Monkey because as we were swinging our hips and spinning each other in circles with huge grins on our faces, I realized that it was the first time I felt fully free and fully alive.

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Nick is the guy grasping the cigarette at the corner of his crooked smile as he plots how he can either A. make everyone laugh until they piss themselves or B. just fuck with everyone’s heads for his own personal enjoyment. He sees the good in everyone and forgives the bad with compassion. He knows that it is better to learn to see life through someone else’s perspective than to judge anyone. When Nick is sober, he is who I am when I am drunk. He is beautifully, genuinely wild and alive and it doesn’t take Sang Som or Chang or anything for him to be that way. He just is.

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The reason why I called this post “Home” is because I came to Thailand searching for a home that felt more like home than where I came from. I have learned since being here that home isn’t a place on a map or a building with an address. It’s just being with the people you love who love you back. The people who love to make you laugh, hold you when you cry, and hate to watch you hurt. I called this post “Home” because I want to go home, not to the states, just home to my people. I miss you all!

*Disclaimer: The following statement is completely false and was used for creative purposes only.

“Sometimes there won’t be Sang Som and Chang”  <—False. There will ALWAYS be Sang Som and Chang bitches! =b