October 30

This summer, while I was in an art store in Newport with my family, I picked up a journal, yellow with big white letters on the cover reading, “She decided to start living the life she imagined”. Now me, I am quixotic and ridiculous like this, fell in love with the phrase, with its meaning and the way it looks and sounds strung into a row, and my grandma bought it for me, saying, “You must write in it while you are in Cambodia”, ecstatic at my new possession, my intentions were and are deliberate in matching title and content. And now here I am, months later, in Cambodia, on the back of a motorbike for 20 K, on my way to a waterfall just out of Sihanoukville, on a quiet red dirt road, lush green on both sides, the wind in my hair, my spirit free and independent, thinking that situations like this exceed any expectation or imagined plan for my life at 19. And I wondered again to myself, “Right now, is the life I'm choosing to the live the one I imagined?” Where has my youth gone? I wonder this at times, Nada Surf's "The Blankest Year" blasts from my headphones, comes on when I shuffle songs on my ipod, "Oh, to hell with it," it repeats, in catchy melody, drums and simple bar chords, "I"m gonna throw a party" Such simplicity, irresponsibility in life has its short-lived joys, light-hearted, good energy, yet this kind of life is not mine, it cannot be for me. I look at my life, I am 19 years old, I work long hours, wake up early in the morning, stay up late worrying about the grades of my students, their well-being, if they will pass or fail. I am a missionary, careful in the things I wear, say, in the example I give. I yell and scream, suffer myself and make others suffer for their insubordination. I ask myself this as I ride down the road, the voices in my head argue, destructive of the solitude and peace I once felt from the wind blowing through my hair. I live on my own in a 3rd world country, with lots of people putting their trust in me, in my abilities and in my knowledge. Is this the life I imagined? I will keep writing and you can keep reading, and then maybe you will know.

Ly Heng, my first grade student with great English, asked me where I was going for Christmas. I told him that I was going to the United States to see my family, and all of the kids in the first row that could hear past the giggling and squirliness of group coloring, yelled out, “Me go with you!” Ly Chard’s eyes got all big, “Me go with you!” Chhoun and Ly Chard both grabbed my hands, “If I not go with you, I will cry!” “I want to take you with me,” I said to both of them, “But I have no money. You need a lot of money. Do you have a lot of money?” Both Chhoun and Chard in unison, sang “I have! I have!” And they went on to write numbers of thousands of reil they had in the air with their pencils (4000 reil is equivalent to $1 US), “I have lots of money!” Chard kept going, “And I will stay with you, in the house you, and I will sleep in the bed with you.” Chhoun wants to sleep outside, and Lasa, the smallest boy in my class, perked up his head, “Teacher!" he said beaming, "I will sleep in the room!” “You go to the U.S., Will you come back?” Ly Heng asked. And before I could answer, students started yelling, and Chard's eyes got all glassy, “Come back! Come back! Come back!”