Mixed Emotions: On Leaving Asia

We are wrapping it up here in Thailand. In Asia. The time has come that we feel the need to swing back through our home country for a bit. It is time to see Brittany and Collin, time for a beer and a wee dram of whiskey and good conversation with good friends, time to get Mom moved into her new assisted living apartment, time to do some work on a couple of our houses. Most of all… it is summer time. There is no way in hell we will be coming back through oregon in the winter.

We just can’t do that anymore. We aren’t super convinced that we will be able to handle a summer there, honestly. Yesterday we were out bobbing around in the eighty-nine degree ocean water, and it sparked an interesting conversation about how cold it is at home. Yes, I get it guys, It will be summer, but, come on! How many times has it sleeted sideways on the Fourth of July? How many times have I shivered my way through a concert at the Les Schwab Amphitheater in August, wearing a puffy coat and beanie, thinking I was about to die of hypothermia? How many times have I jumped in the Deschutes River, only to have forgotten how damned cold that water is? How many times have we regretted the decision to stay on the Oregon coast for a week to kiteboard with friends (okay, the kiteboarding and friends part was awesome, but the Oregon coast demands puffy coats and full winter gear all summer). How many times have I needed to put on a wetsuit, still cold and clammy from the day before, fighting the paralysis for twenty minutes before it warms up inside, just to jump into freezing water and wait another twenty minutes to warm up again?

Basically, it all comes down to this: We have become complete warm-weather, warm-water prima donnas. We have not been cold in the last seventeen months. Okay, there was this one night in Vietnam when we had to put on sweatshirts, and the two days we spent at seven thousand feet elevation in Sri Lanka when we had to dig those same sweatshirts out again (it was cold and rainy). I have not put shoes on my feet the entire time either. I am terrified at the thought of it. I just don’t think my feet are going to fit in any shoes, ever again (Tam calls them “foot prisons”). I had several periods of three months at a time in Sri Lanka when, not only did I not wear shoes, I never even wore flip flops. Just barefoot, no need for anything. Its easy to get spoiled by that. We have not been in a wetsuit in that long. Hell, we haven’t even been in water less than eighty degrees, so why would we want to wrap ourselves in cold, clammy rubber suits?

Well, shit. This is the forecast for the first three days we are back in Bend.

What the actual fuck?

Seriously!?

I may not be looking forward to being cold again, but there is a short list of things I have missed and am looking forward to (in no particular order, other than the way they occurred to me):

Burritos from the Super Burrito (and Mexican food in general)

Proper whiskey (the only time I got any was when Matt visited and brought a bottle of one of may favorite Irish whiskeys all the way to Sri Lanka) (and another in Thailand) Thanks Matt!

A proper pint of a nice, flavorful, hoppy summer ale or IPA (the beer throughout SE Asia is pretty uninspiring watery lager).

Morel mushroom hunting (sadly, this may be over for the season when we get home).

Which goes along with the smell of warm summer pine forests or high desert sage brush after a good summer thunderstorm.

Friends, and evenings of great conversation over good food next to a fire pit.

My kid (I have missed Brittany even more than I have missed Super Burrito)!

There are things to look forward to, but a a lot more things to miss about South and Southeast Asia.

First and foremost, I will miss being warm. Everyone thought we would miss the changing of the seasons, and miss those cold crisp winter mornings.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Nope. Not even a little.

I will miss warm nighttime walks on moonlit beaches, motorbike rides in the evening to cool off after the torrid day, and the cultural differences that lead to cultural challenges that lead to a broader understanding of this world.

I will miss the adventure of driving a tuk tuk in a foreign country (driving a car in the US is going to be BORING after all this). I just hope I can remember to drive on the right again (or it won’t be all that boring after all).

I will miss the elephants, weasels, crocodiles, monitors, leopards, buffalo, and the seemingly infinite array of animals that have entertained us this entire time (I don’t remember seeing any of those critters around Bend).

I will miss the ocean, the warm ocean, that has been our everyday companion, therapist, and lover for the last year and a half (Bend would be a lot cooler place if we had an ocean there… a warm ocean).

I will miss the people. Everywhere we have been, they have been the friendliest, most giving, and happiest people in the world.

All this said, we are only planning on coming back for the summer. We are planning to run off again by September some time. Tam and I were laughing yesterday that we would probably get off the plane in Redmond, get halfway down the ramp, realize how cold it really is, and turn around and try to fight our way back into the plane to leave again.

In all seriousness, it is impossible for me to express clearly how magical this time has been. We have had the freedom to explore, rest, love, and heal; to adventure as much as to relax. We have proven to ourselves that this “retirement” thing works. Financially and mentally both.

This is how I feel most days now. There is no hurry to be in a hurry (unless the surf is good or the wind is blowing, of course).

I love my naps and slow mornings.

Neither one of us has any reason to pull the plug on this grand adventure, so we don’t have any plans to do so. We are coming back through the US to catch up a few projects and see a bunch of people we have been missing, which we are looking forward to immensely, but we have every intention of continuing on our merry way as soon as possible. We don’t have any plans yet as far as where we will be exploring next, but we do know that we are leaving Asia for a couple of years. It is time to explore other places, other cultures, for a while.

We just hope that it will be warm.