Pressing "re-start"

A few times in life we are allowed to press the "re-start" button: high school, college, graduation, new job, next job, moving to Cambodia (if applicable), and so on.  Sometimes we're conscious and exercise our finger before we push, other times it's pushed for us. I haven't quite decided if I'm the one pushing the button or if some other force is pushing it for me this time around.  All I know is that the signs are there...

1.  Upcoming Trip(s) -- always provide a time for reading and reflection, generating new ideas, etc.
2.  Dwindling bank account--  expedient need to replace funds and a sense of urgency to acquire full-benefits including vision care.
3.  I've had my hair-colored (this time by a Japanese stylist who promised me he'd try his very best at highlighting my roots, but that he was "only human" and might miss a few strands). It took 3-hours.
4.  20+ hours of transatlantic flights-- also time for reflection, getting to know a new airport (Incheon, Souel), terrible in-flight movies, and undergoing emotional turbulence as waves of excitement and dread cause me to grip my arm-rests and pace the aisle.
5.  Spring Cleaning (lots of washing and re-washing of backpacking backpacks, trekking shoes, and donating randomly acquired items to the cleaner (including a full-set of dish-ware I never used).
6.  Incredible need to really work-out again (since knee/hamstring injury in Dec. I've yet to run more than 10 min. w/out experiencing pain)-- perfect opportunity to try out swimming-biking biathalons and windsurfing.
7.  Acquisition of new shoes (blue leather-straps flat sandaled shoes-- $15).
8.  Meditation willing the perfect next job to be thrown into my lap. (Actually I haven't had time for this one yet)-- visions of me at Starbucks (wearing all black and green apron) occasionally pop into my head.
9. The Economist (reading withdrawal)--> led to an hour spent standing at Monument Books, browsing the job ads, reading about the upcoming new state of South Sudan and spilled over onto this week's TIME issue.
10. That feeling...

Is life abroad real?

A year in Cambodia can rip apart your heart and soul (and maybe knee) and stitch it back haphazardly, like a bad copy of a Russian-market dress.  Oddly, upon closer inspection, the stitching is stronger.  The experience makes you stronger. Even on a morning when you're completely drained and find yourself on the back of a moto, knowing that if something happens that's it-- you don't have the energy to jump off-- at least you're comforted by the one truth you know: you have lived.  An experience in a foreign place makes every feeling, thought and emotion surface at odd times and then completely empties you out.  Only then, when you're emptied out, feeling nothing, confused by what is the real and unreal, will you know.  You'll be walking in the heated dream that is South East Asia and from somewhere within, a memory of a cold breeze will make you shiver and  whisper that it doesn't matter. 


We choose what we want to live and what we want to be real.