nothing to do with any of that

There’s this pulling that’s been bothering, no bothering isn’t the right word, pulling as of late. I don’t know what to call it… therapy? a call? narcicism?

I mentioned travel before. I hinted at the stories. I shadowed over suffering, emotions that I didn’t quite know what to do with – haven’t known what to do with, ever since.

When I was twenty two I went on this crazy trip, with a friend and a backpack. We travelled all over the place, for a year. We went through the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, China, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Singapore, and Malaysia. We saw a lot – a lot that we weren’t ready for. I didn’t know what to do with it all.

I’m sorry if this shocks you. It shocked me. It changed me. So much that for years, ten exactly, I walked around with it bottled inside, not knowing what to do with it, not knowing how to tell you what it did to me. Not knowing, how to tell you what I saw happening to them.

We went through so much ourselves that I didn’t even want to speak to my friend after we got back. I cut her off. I had to. I had to cope, with the simplicity of living a normal life, taking hot showers, going out with friends, new friends, and smelling decent.

When I firsted arrived from Malaysia I spent two days inside a tiny apartment before going outside. I was darkly tannned from my time spent outdoors and at a small beach, thin, as we rarely had enough to eat, and not yet aclimated to the Charleston January chill. I cried and drew as memories so recent hid themselves behind doors that I could not see, and I relished my solitude. I did not want to make friends. I wanted to stay protected, in my bubble. I did not want to show my suffering.

When I saw an Indian family on the street, I stopped them, so happy to speak with them, with the farmiliar. At home I cooked tikka masala and ate with my hands. My mother said I’d never find a man if I kept behaving so strangely.

I tried to forget Puskar, the boy who fed us when we had none, sleeping in the ‘hippie temple’ (that’s what they call it) in Kathmandu. I didn’t want to remember how much I had wanted to take him with me, what little future he had, and how he looked like a different person the time we arranged for him to take a shower. We bought him shoes and he sold them just as quickly, to pay for what? – A trip to a city where he knew a man that could teach him to draw.  We searched for him for days, and when he came back, I still remember his catlike gaze, with a dirty etching in one hand he ran into my arms as I held his tiny, filthy body. He was barefoot. We had thrown away his flip flops after buying his new shoes. Now he had nothing.

I don’t know if that experience taught me not to touch, or if it taught me anything at all. I have almost forgotten about Puskar, who, in my mind, never aged. But that is false. He is a man now, being fourteen at the time I knew him makes him twenty four, older that I was when we met. I wonder how he is, if he has survived. I wonder if he still sleeps in the temple, giving tours to foreigners and winning their hearts for a warm meal. I wonder if he got it together, if he has a family. I wonder if he remembers me. Surely not. To him, I was one among many. To me, he was the only one.

Please be patient while I get this worked out.