Adventure becomes Normalcy

Sometimes I forget. I forget how "adventurous" and "exotic" my life is compared to the average girl from Waxhaw, NC. As I wrote in a blog last year, once you live in a place for 6 months or so, everything that used to be so "How cool" "Wow", becomes normal.

The street vendors with an array of food, drinks and fruits used to captivate me. I was like a child in a candy store for the first time. Wanting to try everything, and not knowing where to start, overflowing with curiosity.

Now when I walk past the vendors, the smells of basil, peanut oil, and spices that make my eyes water are like the smell of pajamas I have slept in a few days---familiar and cozy, not startling. Now when I see the different carts I wonder why there isn’t more. Why is it I can only find the coconut ice cream man when I don’t want it, and he is elusive when I do want it?

After experiencing, tasting and searching, I now have favorites… like basil and chicken over rice. I adore how it’s spicy flavor stays long after the last bite has passed through my flaming lips. Or green mango dipped in sugar and spice. The fresh taste mixed with the dip gives it zing. Or chayen, iced Chinese tea with sweetened condensed milk, which its dark orange liquid has left its mark many a time on my shirts.

An elephant ambling down the street as I'm eating dinner at an open-air restaurant makes me smile, but not want to frantically whip out my camera to get a picture of the mysterious beast. The gentle but strong creature is now like a cute dog walking with its owner on the street. I think how nice, maybe I can pet it. Then I do and move on.

When I see people bowing randomly on the street because they have passed a Buddhist god of some sort I acknowledge it as much as someone would when they see passer-by wave at a friend. The remnants of Starbucks drinks, sodas, and street food mixed with smoking incense in front of the idols are just another part of the scenery.

Zipping my Skytrain pass over the sensor is so part of my routine that I get it out even when I go on the subway…even though I can’t use it there. I casually sit on the bright yellow seats and stare at the tourists flipping maps around, pointing at the signs on the trains, wondering where to get off. But I have now timed my exit perfectly. I know that exactly two seconds after the train stops I can stand and smoothly walk out precisely when the doors open.

Seeing beautiful Thai women with old, geeky farang men everywhere is a sight that used to shock me, but now I just feel anger about the injustice. Now it is hard for me not to assume that every older white man I see is just in this land of freedom to find the companionship and love in a poor Thai women that he couldn’t find back home.

It is no big deal to get a 1,000 baht bill and then immediately search for a 7/11 to buy something like water for 8 baht so I can get change. I know that all the street vendors taxis, and motorcycles would moan and groan and show me they cant give me any change if I were to give them such a large bill.

I am used to sweating, sweating, sweating when I step outside even when it is January. Yet, I still always forget to bring a jacket when I go to cafés and am constantly shivering and then hit with the shock of hotness once I amble outside.

Discovering a bathroom with not only toilet paper, but soap AND paper towels is now like winning the lottery and is new gossip I tell my friends. “No way, we need to go to that restaurant/café more often!”

I forget how KFC in America has biscuits and mac and cheese. Now I get spicy chicken Thai-style on rice, and maybe even the fried sushi roll. Ahh, but once I remember about the biscuits, my mouth does water a bit. :)

I have reached the state of being able to ride side-saddle on a motorcycle taxi while gripping the handle behind the seat and holding my burdensome laptop bag with my other hand, as the wind makes my skirt fly a bit. Squeezing between the cars, buses and taxis while performing my balancing act is not an intense scene from an action movie any longer. The taxi is now my chariot ride to work.

Ahh, but one thing that still isn’t normal for me is the Thai language. I feel I have gone backwards instead of forwards at times and wonder if I will ever figure out the puzzle of this sing-song tonal language that no matter how I say a word it never is right.

Yes, I did step out of my comfort zone to come here, but now this place is becoming my comfort zone. It is hard because I have never been in a country long enough for this to happen, so I wondered as I became comfortable, what else I would learn.

But even when things become normal, the learning never ends. The past year and a half Im growing through dealing with life. The basics I knew growing up--how to love, how to forgive, how to accept, how to appreciate, how to be unselfish--are things I have to apply to my marriage and work in order to survive. Im seeing that even adventure can become "normal"--but normal doesn't have to mean boring--life always has it's surprises, joys, and trials--no matter where you live.

I hope I can take the lessons I have learned here, the cultural ones, and the life ones, and use them to inspire others when I go to my old comfort zone in Waxhaw.

But I think it might take another six months before it becomes my comfort zone again, and while Dom's adjusting too Im excited to see my old world through his eyes as "How cool" "Wow". The adventure never ends.