Sep 28 2008
Perhaps Someday We Will Look Back Upon These Trials With Joy
So began one of the most famous lines of Virgil's Aeneid — "Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit."
I am today supposed to be in the Manila airport awaiting a late night flight to Guam, where I planned on going for several days en route to Micronesia, French Polynesia, and other points into the Pacific Ocean. However, it seems I reserved my flight to Manila and to Guam without sufficiently planning ahead.
I fucked up.
In making final preperations for the trip, I learned that there are not many, if ANY, budget accommodations on most of the islands I was hoping to visit. As such, unlike Asia, where most expenditures come from obtaining transportation (i.e., car, bus, train, plane), I have learned that most of the expenditues I faced in my proposed Pacific trip would come from both obtainng transportation, AS WELL AS lodging and food. Simply stated, I just can't afford to take that trip.
So I'm sucking it up, getting out early, and taking some losses from the (newly modified) non-refundable flight tickets. The whole affair, quite candidly, has left a sour taste in my mouth … both airlines I was booked through — Cebu Pacific and Philippines Airlines — have the WOST customer service in the airline industry (A friendly word of advise … take into account their ever-changing 'refund policies' before booking a flight on either of those airlines).
So instead, I'm leaving later this week for Bali, Indonesia — where I'll be looking for an apartment. I'm leaving Bangkok for a while.
I'm starting to figure out, in fits and spurts, that the traveling portion of this 'sojern' of mine may be coming to a close. I no longer feel like finding great new places to go surf and explore. Rather, lately every time I go somewhere new, I just want to go back to Indonesia. Apparently home IS where the heart is — and if the worst thing that's happening to me is that I lose a couple airplne tickets in figuring that out, things aren't going too bad.
Of greater importance is that, despite any the 'imagined' stress this whole situation has provoked, right now I find it extremely hard to gripe about these altogether trivial matters going in my life.
As I've mentioned previously, my friend Jill Lawler and her family were caught in the path of a terrible storm when their mother and brother were BOTH diagnosed with cancer within months of each other. And yesterday, just months after her mom passed away, Jill's brother too lost his fight with the disease. He was only 32 years old.
Apart from the title of this post, I haven't quite the words to express my sorrow for their loss, and my wish for an end to their seemingly non-stop anguish. I am so, so sorry. All my thoughts are with you guys.
