A Bowl of Stupid

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I recently scrapped a planned trip through Vietnam with a friend over Christmas. However, having already paid about US$50.00 for the Visa, I decided to take the trip myself several weeks later, and I visited Dong Ha, Hue, Hoi An, and then China Beach — a few miles outside Da Nang, Vietnam, from where I had planned on flying back to Bangkok before heading home to Bali.

But life is utterly random.

I met a princess at China Beach (literally on the beach). Like me, she was a foreigner just passing through on holiday (unfortunately she, like myself, is also a lawyer).

And while I hesitate to discuss the specifics (which I’m not sure I could fully articulate even if I tried), we wound up on the beach together all evening and throughout the night. And for me, it turned into one of those resounding experiences we all dream about, and which we’ve the luxury of experiencing only a handful of times in a lifetime.

And she and I decided to stay together traveling for the next week, to Bangkok, then through Phenom Phen and Seam Reap and touring Anchor Wat, and then — ever too briefly — back through Bangkok. I had an absolute and total blast with her … and I regret nothing.

And then early this morning, I left.

I am writing this now on a plane back to Bali. She is, presumably, still asleep in our room back in Bangkok.

Yes, it sounds silly, I only spent a week with this girl, but already I feel hollow without her presence near me. But I gave myself fully to this lovely, lovely girl, even knowing it would last only a week. And now I’m at a loss as to what to feel, write or do to compensate for this indescribable loss.

And I will, most likely, fall out of love with her in the next couple days — out of necessity, given the many time zones and countries that separate us.

I will compartmentalize. I will push away. And I will move on. That’s what I do.

And most likely, I will never see her again (at least romantically). But dammit man, it just doesn’t seem right. Not at all.

Nonetheless, I just want to capture here, for posterity’s sake, some of the bliss I’ve enjoyed with her throughout this past week. And some of the melancholy in which I now find myself awash without her.

And I want to remind myself (and others) that this was the moment I decided I need, not want, but NEED to return to the real world. I’m coming to the end of my spiritual sojourn.

Yes, I may stay in Bali through the summer. But I want to live a real life again.

For this, and for other things of which she may never know, I thank her.