Lights Out

Thursday July 11^th, 2013

Our electricity has been out all day. It was kind of nice in away. It didn’t even phase me when the lights wouldn’t turn on this morning. I hope I can bring that go with the flow attitude home with me and allow myself to be unmessable. I ran today in the afternoon. As the sun was setting I was running towards it. It was breathtaking. Everything was quiet. I can feel myself getting stronger and my endurance growing. People in the village looking at me like I’m nuts when they see my running around It’s funny to me how people I don’t even know me ‘honk’ and wave at me like they know me when they drive by. Do they do that to everyone on the side of the road?

Time and days feel slow but it’s nice. It’s nice that I don’t feel the need, this pressure and obligation that I should be “doing something” and having this feeling of anxiousness if I’m not. This feeling that I need to be somewhere. This feeling that I just can’t sit still. Like I’m constantly waiting for something. A call. A text. Instead of just living and enjoying the moment. I want to bring this habit back to the US.

Feeling like I have time to do nothing is comforting. I feel like the moment I have a spare minute in LA I feel the obligation to fill it with something. Here I have so much that I could do and if I don’t do them I don’t feel guilty like I’m lazy and not doing things. I think life needs to have a balance like this. Or maybe I need to live in a place more laid back than where I live. I don’t want to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of it all. I just want to be. I want to live my life not based off other expectations and standards.

What I really don’t miss is the media. My family knows that I dislike having the TV on while we eat so they always turn it off when we’re eating now.

I’m really gonna miss my homestay family when I live. They are so amazing and I’ve gotten so close to them. I feel like I truly have a home away from home if I ever come back to this place.