“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul TherouxI miss Vietnam. I miss it a lot. As the passage of time buffs away memories of frustration and homesickness, I find myself homesick for the ideals of my experience. I miss my students, their smiles, their energy. I forget their silences. I become nostalgic for the hand-sized spiders in the bathroom.
I miss the food, of course. But that's the one thing I can almost get here, though it's almost never the same. I miss speaking Vietnamese, yet I rarely conversed in it there. I was on the cusp of daring before I left, and I miss the chance I would have had to come into my own if I had stayed.
I forget the loneliness and I remember the adventure. I miss the wind in my hair, forgetting that I always wore a helmet. I miss the potential for adventure being around every corner, even though it did all become mundane after a while. I miss chasing adventure on weekends away, clinging to the back of the motorbike as my favorite pilot whizzed us over country roads.
I miss the love and care that I didn't always feel but was undeniably there. It seems that every time the pessimistic voice pops up, suggesting that I've been forgotten, that those I might have touched have moved on and left me behind, I get an email or two from former students. And it makes my day.
I miss Vietnam and the life I made there, but I am grateful to realize I have no regrets. I could have done things differently; I could have pushed further beyond my comfort zone, but I was already living thirteen time zones past it. So I think that was plenty far enough. Now I just want to go back.
