Take This How You Will.

I said I would talk about this, so here goes. I hope this doesn’t make anyone mad. My blogs are so good at that. I've already been unfriended by a few conservatives on Facebook, so this might put the remaining few over the edge too. I'll understand.

When I am not living in the US, I get to wash my hands of its problems. Gun culture, Trump, racism (and worse, the denial of it)? Chuckle… not my problem anymore, you guys enjoy that ridiculous mess, all the loud, spitty barking stupidity. When I read “if you don’t like it, you can leave” in every political comment thread, I feel smug and accomplished. *Done!* (A side note: Why is it only one side that gets to decide how things have to be, and if the rest of us don’t like it, we can leave? Do you honestly ever hear people saying, “Roe v. Wade made abortion legal… don’t like it? Leave!” or, “Gay people are allowed to get married… don’t like it? Don’t let the door hitcha on the way out!”) A few years ago, a conservative friend of mine mentioned wanting to live in Europe. I’m embarrassed to admit that the idea of that enraged me enough to lose sleep. You don’t get to vote against things that would make the US more like Europe, and then go live in Europe! No no no, you made your bed, you lie in it; you break it, you buy it. 

I am not buying it. I left. And it is everything I thought it would be. 

Here’s the cheating part: I don’t have to deal with Thai problems either. It’s not my country. I can walk by piles of trash on the side of the road, and even though it sucks, I don’t feel a personal disappointment. No matter how much I love living here I don’t have any ownership or stake in this country; not even informally, as in my infatuation with Germany. I don’t understand most of what goes on here. (A side note: I have to get a friend, an American guy well-versed in Thai culture and politics, to explain everything to me. Because I can't read Thai either, I often find myself brushing away thoughts of The Handmaid's Tale. Nevermind.) Maybe the general population is just as shrill and obnoxious as Americans, but I don’t speak the language, so I get to smile and move on with my day. When I buy cheap over-the-counter prescription meds or contact lenses? I feel like I’m cheating. When I can walk or ride my bike anywhere? When I can leave my kids alone in the house for 45 minutes while I go for a run, and I don't get arrested or at least scolded for it? Cheating. When I buy fresh produce at an outdoor market and it’s actually cheaper than the store instead of the other way around? When I get a nice restaurant meal or massage for $5? Cheating. There were no toy commercials on TV leading up to Christmas. We bought the girls like three things and they're still playing with them, happily. Life is not supposed to be this easy. Aren’t I supposed to be stuck in traffic somewhere, late for something, frazzled with noise and exhausted to the point of misery?

I get to live amongst stunning scenery that’s not only for the rich, and see parts of town that are gritty and graffiti-ed and smelly, but not dangerous. There is nothing beige-and-gray or big-box about my surroundings. Nothing is off-limits, and everything is interesting. I can feel parts of my brain, creative parts, opening and growing. This place is crack for the curious mind.

I wonder if I’m cheating by getting out of my responsibilities as a citizen. I mean, at the local level, I still bring my own grocery bags to the store, I never litter, and I will be absentee voting next year. The main citizen-duty I can think of that I’ve stopped doing is trying to talk politics. I’ve stopped caring so much. I still read everything though. I used to attempt meaningful discussions with people from the Other Team, and it devolved into snotty bullying immediately. Those discussions with rigid "patriots" made me hate my country. So many people have no interest in considering anything other than their way, whether it works or not (like for-profit healthcare... I saw yet another cancer treatment crowdfund plea on Facebook just this morning. This is what people yell and scream to defend. Turns my stomach). There is no awareness of the fact that nearly every other place in the world is doing things differently, and many of those things are working. Nope! WE'RE STILL #1 SHUT UP LALALALALA.

I am totally cheating on my family back home. We are completely unavailable for any family obligations, which means we get to be selfish. When we travel somewhere for the purpose of traveling, not visiting, it feels strange and I feel guilty. This is absolutely not intended to make my family say “FINE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO VISIT EVER AGAIN!” I love visiting my family; they are without a doubt the coolest people I know. But traveling just to travel? My god. It’s so indulgent, it has to be wrong. Cheeeaatinngg.

I've been trying to get this finished and posted for two weeks. Christmas was crazy even in a country that doesn't celebrate it (although it made shopping easy... I started and finished my shopping on Christmas Eve!). Here's a small slice of our lives lately. 

 

The next post will have to be about the elephants. We spent a few days in Chiang Mai and went to this elephant camp. Along with our wedding day and the birth of our girls, it was one of the best and most memorable days of my whole life. I'm only waiting because they gave us four CDs full of pictures and videos, and my laptop doesn't have a CD drive so I have to take it to school to upload all of it. So that's next! Soon! Today the girls are going to play at their friend's house, and Nick and I are going to spend $1.20 to sit in some hot springs.

I'm sorry this was such a bummer. Honestly, it's what's on my mind most of the time. I know we can't stay here. We have to go home (for our pensions), and I don't want to. I love New England, I miss my family, and I love the town where we worked and everyone at our school, but I'd be happy to never live in the US again. I've spent 24 years longing to be an expat. "Expat" is my favorite word in the English language. It's barely been six months here and it's already the fastest two years of my life.