Two Lifetimes In One....

**Note: Well, it's apparent that this topic isn't really of interest to most! :) (Gee, ya think?) Anyway, come by again tomorrow and I'll try to think of something of more general interest. There are days, you know....

~*~*


This is probably a strange thing to write about but it's something that's been on my mind for the past week or so.

In my life here and even in blog reading, many people are talking about the past. They give snippets of their lives, where they came from, things they've done, people they've known. It caused me to become very aware of how utterly repelled I am by my own past. It's as though I've lived two lifetimes in one. There's pre-Thailand and post-Thailand.

When I look back to the past, it seems unreal, as though someone else lived it. Someone else was that shell of a person with no connections, no roots. Someone else was that person with "reverse charisma" whose inability to draw people was completely alienating. This went beyond simply attitude. It was an external reality. Karmic I believe. Someone else lived in that desert of the soul where everyone and everything seemed one step removed.

Or perhaps I was an alien.

Often I still feel that here but being able to detach from it at will, it never takes root. Just a fleeting feeling that comes and goes on occasion, like a long-forgotten scent. The way of life here feels very foreign but I can be selective about what and how I interact with it.

It's difficult to explain what happened in Thailand. Words are too one-dimensional to capture it. That will probably take the rest of my life. In many ways, Thailand was a homecoming but it was also completely unfamiliar. It was a weird tropical planet called "Southeast Asia" and it was so far removed from anywhere I'd ever visited, anything ever seen, that I wasn't quite sure why the instant recognition was so blatantly obvious. A part of me observed life there with detachment while another part grasped it in my palm as though it was the very ground I walked on and my survival depended on it. It was new ~ and I didn't know the rules yet ~ but I knew I was meant to be there. And it was, on an unconscious level, entirely familiar.

There was an instant recognition that Thailand would bring the one thing I'd wanted all my life: belonging. It came out of nowhere and I had no idea what it all meant yet. But a door had opened to a life I'd known was possible, but had never seen. In other words, I knew it would appear one day but didn't know where or how. That was my past ... searching for something, for something that would validate that, yes, I did exist and, yes, I did have a "home".

Despite my "outsider" status in Thailand, I never spent a single lonely or empty day there. I'd always been an outsider here but felt every single painful moment of it. I've spent thousands of such days here. My affinity for the people there was returned ~ and it wasn't the typical "worship of foreigners" most visitors experience. (For more detail on that, see Doodee's recent post on the topic.) There was a soul-level recognition, an immediate sense of community that I experienced with ex-pats and Thai nationals alike. That isn't to say I didn't have the experiences that Doodee writes about but I was able to glide by it quickly and find the people whose souls connected to mine. Some were Thai and some were farang but the recognition was obvious to all of us.

Thailand isn't perfect and my life there will not be perfect. Still, there's a connection that can't be broken by a few stupid people or lousy experiences. Or perhaps it's simply a matter of my inability to be broken. There's a major difference between "being home" and having to process normal life experiences and being where belonging is in such short supply that there's no cushion, no sense of security, no feeling of connectedness and having to deal with it. In the latter environment, every single negative experience feels overwhelming and permanent. Loss feels irreparable.

Kate asked a few weeks ago what connects me so strongly to Thailand. I told her at the time that it couldn't be quantified but that I would make an effort to at least define it.

How do you define "home"? How do you define the familiar? I'm not sure it can be done because the layers are so thick and there are so many nuances that writing even half of it would require a book.

When I get to Khon Kaen and get settled, I might do just that .. write a book. I'll write a book about transformation, the search for home, finding meaning, finding the roots that keep me connected to the world instead living the life of an empty shell, the existentially lost, the cloudy, vague and incredibly unhappy me of the past.


Peace,


~Chani