Return

I’m back in Cambodia. I arrived Thursday around noon after a very long time in the sky. My last flight was rather interesting. I sat next to and in front of a family who was returning to Cambodia after fleeing as refugees at least 15 years ago. Their excitement as they looked out the window at the expanse of their homeland was beautiful. They asked me questions about getting around and what to see. It was ironic that I was the “expert” on their home country. It was also pretty funny that the women wanted to know why I wasn’t yet married and if I would be interested in being set up with one of their cousins. Sorry, but no thanks.

It was hard to leave. I feel like there simply wasn’t enough time with the people I love. Yet, when I asked myself what “enough” meant, I realized that I wanted not just more days, but months and years spent with them. I still want to walk through life with people I care about, a phone call or a few miles away, in community and in country. The places I visited (even the new places) had so much familiarity to them, so much of my “old life” that it was hard to realize that I’d moved on. Cambodia wasn’t just another country, it was another life, a place I existed only sometimes. This all sounds strange and existential, but hopefully it makes a bit of sense.

This is the third time I’ve left the US for a life somewhere else. The first was a bloodbath, a brutal exchange of goodbyes and tears. Yet, there was a lot of excitement, a lot of hope for what was coming up ahead. The second time was more subdued. I was headed back to responsibility, and could foresee another time when I’d be back, with more chances to catch up, to feel a part of life in the States. This time, it’s hard to describe. There’s not much excitement in coming back, or at least, it’s not the same. I know what life is here in Cambodia, and I’ve spent a lot of time contrasting it to life in America. So it was harder to get on the plane, harder to leave, harder to elect to distance myself from what was a good life.

Maybe the contrast isn’t fair. After all, it’s not that I chose to leave a bad situation for a good one. It’s not a good idea to set up my life in Cambodia as the opposite of my life in California. On both sides of the ocean, there are good things and hard things. Maybe the trick is to keep in perspective that the hard things in both places don’t outweigh the good things. Sadly, being in one place means I can’t be in the other; and I really want to be in two places at once. For now, my feet stay in the dusty Cambodian soil, and my thoughts drift between two continents. It isn't contrast, it's compromise.