...I'm afraid.

I'm excited. I can't wait. Only about 27 more days, then I board that plane and get out of here for two months and a week. 67 days! Ahhh!

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm terrified. I'm afraid that "it" will happen again and I don't know what I'll do if it does. I'm afraid about so many things that probably aren't even worth worrying about.

WHAT is it about the place that has me so damn obsessed with it? It's like I was born in the wrong country. It was.....everything that made me who I am. It made me what I wasn't- confident. It was....amazing. A country of old and new and eveything in between. Monks at bus stops. Squeaky children's sandals. Fruit eaten with a mix of sugar, chilli, and salt. A waterfight on an enormously long street and a boy with a mole on his cheek whose hair smelled of chilli and oranges.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night, watching the moon shining slickly in through the window, then going up to the roof, sitting and eating mango bits until sunrise. I remember hanging up my laundry on the clothesline or clothes racks upstairs, and watching my school uniform flap lazily in the breeze. I remember knuckle-scrubbing and showering with a bucket and shower wrap. I remember that time I got food poisoning in Hua Hin and all the cousins thought I was going to die, then getting sick on a school trip and really wanting to die. I remember feeling a drumbeat in my veins at an Indian wedding, tasting laddoos and burfi, and dancing the night away, then going out for Subway after the second part of the wedding.

I remember the coaches of the guys' city soccer team saying foreign girls can't play soccer, and me arching an eyebrow and plunking my hands on my hips. I remember the curious looks in the eyes of the guyson the team, watching this showdown between their coaches and a girl.

"ohhh. Pooying len football mai dai. Jing loh ka?" (Ohhh. Girls can't play soccer. Realllyyyy.)

"Jing si! Pooying len football mai-dai."(Yes! Girls can't play soccer.)

"Oh-hoh! Chan kit baang tee kun mai kao-jai pooying taang Canada ka."(Oh-hoh! I think maybe you don't understand Canadian girls.--said as I was already running on to the field)

Know what I did? I went out on that dry, sandy field and kicked ass. The coaches had to admit--I wasn't a stereotypical farang. They thought I was cool. "Don't apologize for knocking me over, I'm on the other team!" :P

I miss squatting in a circle with my friends at satit and then going to the canteen for lunch. I miss going to Big C with everybody, taking motorcycle taxis, and waiing temples when I walked or rode past them. It just became second nature to me, and I didn't even feel like I had to do it. I just did it. I remember a sticky heat and cold-powder "Shower To Shower" on sweaty backs, stomachs, necks, and armpits. I remember the monsoons, and watching the storm roll in so fast that you could practically taste the electricity.

I remember waking up crying, shaking and afraid, that one terrible night, reaching out in the dark and feeling a friend holding on to me for dear life. The terrible empty hole that threatened to swallow me whole and destroy me forever, but being chased away by close friends and the determination to overcome it. I remember forcing myself to go on that street....I remember seeing a horribly familar face on a passing bus and almost screaming. Fear so overpowering I could taste it. The shakes and sweats I get even now, two years later, if I remember it. The way the chedi looked after the rains, shining and slick like a terra-cotta bell. I remember the comfort I found in Buddhism and in meditation; the relaxation I felt when I repeated Buddhist sutras. The feeling that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay.

I've changed a lot in the past two years. I have a feeling that this is going to change me even more.

There there baby, it's just textbook stuff

it's in the abc's of growing up

There now darling, now don't lose your head

'cause none of us were angels

and you know I love you, yeah