Tropical Christmas
December in Bangkok feels almost magical. The temperature drops just enough to pull out the long-sleeved shirts and sweaters for my morning walk to the skytrain station, and the sky is a pale, cloudless blue that signals the end of the year. Christmas trees are set up in front of most malls and hotels, made of different materials, sparkling in different colors, and it takes a few days before the tropical mind adjusts to such blatant displays of a winter tradition. In December Bangkok feels bittersweet to me--the end of one year and the start of a new one, filled with new dreams and new hopes, anticipation for where life will take me and wondering if I am living the best life possible.
I turn 27 this New Year's Eve and I haven't decided yet how I feel about that. These last few years of my life have been so hectic that I have not had the time to sit down and think about things, without the pressure of the next thing I have to attend to. I've flown back and forth between St. Louis and Thailand a total of four times in three years. I spent first two summers in St. Louis in 2004 and 2005, and then ten days there to attend my brother's graduation in 2006 before packing my bags and moving to St. Louis last October. I've been living my life dependent on my airplane tickets, and when you do that, when you can fit everything you own into two suitcases weighing 70 pounds or less each, you forget exactly where you belong.
I wish I was spending my December in St. Louis. As much as I love Bangkok at this time of the year, as much as I appreciate the time I am able to spend with my family, and as much as I enjoy walking around this city during Christmas, my heart still calls for a place far away. Christmas is commercialized no matter where you go nowadays, but there's something to be said about a white Christmas, that picture-perfect kind that renews your faith in all of humanity, and being part of traditions that have been passed on for generations. Because as pretty as Christmas is in Bangkok and as much as we like to pretend to be part of things, Christmas is a very Western, very Christian, celebration.
My last Christmas was spent in a very American house, with a very American family, eating a very American dinner and opening a frighteningly large pile of presents. It was only something I'd ever seen in the movies, and it was overwhelming. And it was nice. The Other Half and I had a little tree of our own, bought for 13 dollars at the Dollar Store because we could not afford more, and we decorated it with baubles in our favorite colors--gold, purple, red and turquoise. It worked. And we bought one of those "Our First Christmas Together" ornaments for Hallmark. It is difficult to spend this Christmas apart, but what's another holiday apart in our journey for a lifetime together?
This Christmas will be a quiet one. After I mail off too many Christmas cards to loved ones around the world, after I pay off all my credit card bills from buying too many presents, after I send off the last of my gifts 12,000 miles across the ocean, it will be just me and my thoughts and my memories. It's a good thing I have so many beautiful memories to choose from. And I will go outside and take some pictures, because there's nothing like sparkly decorations to wake up the wannabe photographer in me. And when New Year's Eve comes, when my birthday comes, I will perhaps learn to let go, to stop worrying, to trust the wind...
...and go wherever it takes me.