Hit play.
All the places. All the people. All the roads winding, the trees singing, the songs humming. It’s been a long time, you. It’s been too long. The stories have been waiting to come alive. I, have been waiting to come alive.
How do I begin to tell you?
How do I begin to tell you about the euphoric freedom of that first time I ever jumped off a cliff—in a cave laden with bats somewhere where everything was emerald? Or that time I couldn’t hold my tears back as I stared upon the stunning view of old thatch-roofed houses quietly sitting between pine tree covered mountains in a Japan in autumn? Or that cold December night in Pattaya, where I had been feeling so terribly lonely, yet I found myself in the embrace of a complete stranger reminding me I was wonderful? Or perhaps the bliss of arriving in your favorite island again and again, always to be welcomed by the family you’ve made there and the wonderful echo in your ear as they tell you with an embrace—“welcome home”? And you melt a little inside each time because you know they are right. You are. You are home.
How do I simply begin to tell you all that was? All that continue to be?
I have missed you. I have been missing. Whether literally or figuratively, I have been missing. That is the truth. Which is why I couldn’t return to you. I couldn’t face you half-assed. It was all or nothing. And I was nothing.
I won’t sugarcoat it and tell you the past year and a half has been all rainbows and gardens. It hasn’t been. There were many grey days, clouded by fear, doubt, insecurities, loneliness, and longing. Longing, above all. There were many heartaches and heartbreaks. How do I even begin to tell you that rainy afternoon in Palawan and I was alone. So terribly alone. In bed, in my room, where it was raining just as much.
I look everywhere, I whisper. I goddamn look everywhere.