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Published: August 23rd 2010
Soon I will be living in Surat Thani, Thailand. When the sun sets here it rises there. It is 14 hours ahead. 14 hours into the future.
Those 14 hours are a greater separation than the 8263 miles between where I am and where I will be. As a traveler you lose that time on your way there and you gain it back when you come home. It is a neat and predictable loop. But what happens to that time when you move? When the loop is stretched out like a long straight curveless path?
I would like to think of that time as a tether; a guide line home that doesn’t pull or weigh you down, a reminder that no matter where you are going you will always be tied to where you are from.
In Surat Thani I will be a curiosity, a foreigner, a farang. I will not be able to speak the language, or read the signs. I will not have a car or a flat screen or a 401k. My family and friends will be icons on a Skype account. My normal, my life equilibrium will be sent tumbling and spinning into a strange new world; a world in which I am a teacher, a world in which all of my worldly possessions can be neatly folded into a backpack, a world in which I am the exception not the average. And I could not be more excited.
Eight months ago
abroad was a word that tugged. I loved its connotation. I loved what it represented. But, I didn’t know how to give it life. My recent trip to Thailand gave me the answer. Sitting in waist deep azure waters off Phi Phi Island, I sipped Leo beer and chatted with friends about teaching and traveling. The life we spoke of was far from my normal but tangible and real. I decided then and there that the road less traveled was the only road.
Abroad had gained shape and form and become a thing of action.
Since that day I have saved, sacrificed, planned, packed, biked, bused, simplified, sold, booked and resigned. I am two going away parties and a drive to my parents away from departure. I am calm. I am happy. I am wide-eyed. I am ready for the bottom to drop out. I am ready to tumble and spin into a strange new world with my 14 hour tether trailing behind, reminding me how to come home.
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Mary Hayes
non-member comment
Good Luck!
Good luck! Can't wait to read more once you make it out there. Post pics, too, please. :)