Untethered and Never Better

Ninh Binh, Vietnam
06/19/2023

I made a New Year’s resolution in 2023: No boyfriends till you go to southeast Asia.

A trip to Asia had been a dream of mine since I was in high school. Over the years, what I envisioned got more specific to eventually become three months spent living, working and traveling throughout southeast Asia. Relationships have caused me to backburner this trip more times than I know.

I’ve never specifically said, “I can’t spend three months in SE Asia. I have a boyfriend.” But having a boyfriend has always made it very easy for me to come up with other reasons as to why now wasn’t the time or this wasn’t the year. It’s always been very easy for me to give up things that I want and pieces of myself for other people, whether they ask me to or not. In the end, I wasn’t going to SE Asia because I didn’t want to manage the (mostly self-imposed) relationship-guilt and anxiety that I knew I would battle every day of such a long and faraway trip.

Though there were some plot twists, some moments when it was looking like I wasn’t going to pull it off, I did manage to narrowly escape the US without having a boyfriend.

And, friends, it has been a revelation.

I already knew that I experienced a lot of relationship anxiety during my solo travels. Feeling guilty for leaving them behind; worrying about whether I should check in more; feeling bad about being so in-their-face about what a great time I was having; feeling bad for having such a great time in the first place. But what I didn’t realize was that all of the anxiety I experienced while traveling, not just the stuff that was obviously about a boyfriend, was tied to my relationship. It’s the only explanation I have for what’s different now.

On every solo trip that I’ve taken, there’s been at least one moment on the trip when I have absolutely and irrationally fallen completely apart over something very small.

The example that always comes to mind was in Rabat, Morocco, when I couldn’t find milk. Every other day or so, I’d buy a small carton of milk (the only size available) for my coffee from the “store” next door. “Store” means the next-door-neighbor’s kitchen window out of which he sold basic staples. But one day he wasn't there. I texted my host, who was at work, to ask where else I could get milk. He explained where the closest place was, but I couldn’t find it. I suspect I just didn’t walk far enough, but after walking for a while and not finding it, I was overcome with a crippling and mostly irrational fear that if I kept going, I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. It wasn’t completely irrational. I was staying in a medina – a medieval walled, maze-like part of the city. But still. I was absolutely panicking — about the prospect of drinking my coffee black that day and about possibly getting lost. Soon, I was near tears and it wasn’t about milk anymore. I was cursing myself for being so stubborn and insisting on going to all these crazy places by myself, and then I was upset about being lonely, and then I was upset about being such a fraidy cat who wouldn’t find the store because she was afraid of getting lost in the medina (a fraidy cat who travels the world all by herself, mind you), and I just continued to unravel from there.

There has been at least one incident like this on every solo trip.

The triggering event is always something trivial, and it always devolves into “What the hell are you even doing here? You are all by yourself. Who do you think you are?”

Let me be clear: When I travel, 95% of the time is incalculable bliss. It’s why I take these big trips again and again and will continue to for as long as I am able. This is the thing that makes my soul sing, and when I am not traveling, it is the thing that keeps me awake at night. But there were always these bumps in the road on the journey that I had just chalked up to a fact of solo travel.

In fact, before this trip, I talked about these meltdowns with an advisor of mine, who has always been very supportive and encouraging of this trip over the years. She suggested I fill out a worksheet titled “Coping Ahead,” in which I would make a plan in advance for how I was going to handle the inevitable meltdown when it came.

But it hasn’t come.

I haven’t overreacted to any minor setbacks. I haven’t been afraid of anything – except of getting hit by a car in Hanoi, which I think is a totally rational fear that is actually helping keep me alive. I haven’t been lonely or gotten tired of being alone. And nothing has led me to say to myself, “What are you doing here all by yourself? Why did you think this was a good idea? Who do you think you are?”

In fact, who I think I am is a badass, and I have celebrated being here all by myself from the moment I arrived.

My flight over here was scheduled to land in Chiang Mai at 10pm on a Sunday. I’d arrive at my lodging long after the staff had gone home, so I’d have to let myself in and find my room on my own, based on an instructional video they’d sent, showing me how to get in through the side door and the various keypads in which I’d enter my access code. I’d do this after dark in a strange foreign city that I actually didn’t know much about. I knew it wasn’t a big city though. I knew it was highly likely that the street would be deserted when the taxi driver dropped me off – and it was. I suspected that my first meltdown might take place at some point in this arrival sequence.

Before flying out of Atlanta, I checked in with a Facebook group of female expats who live in Chiang Mai. I told them all of the above and asked them whether this whole plan was safe. They assured me it would be safe and easy.

So I got into a taxi at the airport with the non-English speaking driver. I typed my destination into his phone and placed it and my fate in his hands. As we made our way down a street that was completely unknown to me, along a moat, and through an archway into the Old City, I said to myself, “Damn! I am brave!” And I couldn’t help but grin – a wide, open-mouthed grin – at all I had undertaken to get myself there and that I had done it all by myself, not fearlessly – there had been a lot of fear and anxiety leading up to my departure – but in spite of my fear. “Damn, Sonya!” I said to myself in the back of the taxi.

So far on this trip, I have taken 12 flights between 4 countries and 8 cities - and I still have 1 month, 3 more flights and 1 more country to go. Getting in and out of each country has been a major undertaking. There were visas for several of the countries. Shot records. Letters from my doctor explaining the more-than-30-day supply of prescription drugs in my suitcase in the unlikely event my bag was searched. Proof of onward travel out of each country that required a visa. So much research, planning and work. And so many opportunities to have a meltdown.

But I don’t know what words could make clear just how perfectly happy and at ease I have felt for every minute of this trip. I attribute it to being untethered.

I think that on those other trips, when I had someone to worry about back home, I was so tied up in anxious, guilty knots all the time about traveling without them that all it took was an empty milk carton to push me over the edge. Because, arguably, this should be my hardest trip yet. I’ve never gone so far, for so long, to such a far-away time zone, and to countries so different from my own.

But everything has felt simple, easy and completely amazing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in all my life than I am right now.

There was a period in my 30s – after my divorce and before I met the next person that I would have a long-term relationship with – when all I wanted was a boyfriend. I was so unhappily single that my sister, trying to show me the bright side, suggested I make plans to do all the things I wanted that might not be as easy to do if I were in a relationship. But my laser focus on finding a partner made me blind to any other desires. I couldn’t conjure up a single thing I might like to do in the meantime. It never occurred to me that that would have been the perfect time to travel. All of life was on hold until I had a boyfriend.

And then when I got a boyfriend, I put my life on hold again.

If I could get a message to my younger self, I’d say, Live your life. Do the things that you want to do. The things that make your soul sing. Do them now. Partners come and go. Even that partner that I was desperately seeking in my mid-30s, I found him, and we stayed together for eight years. But we’re not together anymore. You’re only in one relationship that will never end. There’s only one person that you will never be rid of and that’s yourself. That’s who you owe something to.

The Ritual of the Monks

Chiang Mai, Thailand
06/02/23

Though the monks are beyond plentiful here in Chiang Mai, every time I see one, walking barefoot and gazing forward in a meditative state, I behave as if it’s a rare animal sighting. Like when you see a deer in your backyard in the city. You’re standing at the sink, washing the dishes after dinner like normal, and then you see something move, or you see the shine of his eyes. And you freeze. Maybe you whisper to your partner, “Honey! There’s a deer,” and you both creep closer to the window, like burglars in a movie, to get a closer look.

That's me every single time I see a monk here in Thailand.

The first few days here, I got a kick out of seeing them doing everyday things that we all do. The stuff that you could caption “Monks – They’re just like us!”

I saw a monk riding on the back of a motor scooter, his bare feet on the foot rests, his burgundy robe tucked up under him, his hands gripping the seat behind him.

I saw one paying for a basket full of toiletries at the cosmetics store where I, too, was filling a basket with toiletries.

Walking back to my place a few weeks ago, I managed to steal a few shots of these novice monks (pictured right), four boys who’d just gotten out of school, ordering cold drinks at the coffee shop next door.

One afternoon, while exploring a temple I especially like, I saw several teenage monks pruning and watering the shrubs when a garden hose fight broke out. One sprayed another relentlessly until finally, the victim’s robe was soaked from the waste down. He hiked it up almost to his hips and carried the wet drape as he walked back towards the living quarters with his legs a couple extra feet apart.

After having seen all of this "normal human behavior," a week or so into my time in Thailand, I saw monks engaged in a ritual that was not at all “just like us.” It was 6:30 a.m., and I was on the little dead-end street of food stalls where I get my coffee every morning. I was a little later than usual (yes, thanks to the rooster outside my window, who starts up at 4:30am, and the lingering jet lag, I am a very early riser here in Thailand – early even for me!), which may explain why I hadn’t witnessed this ritual before.

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Two young monks, probably teenagers, came down the street towards the food stalls, each carrying a large empty silver bowl. Like the other monks I'd seen, they looked forward intently and not all around them as they walked. They went stall to stall and waited until someone emerged with food and placed it in one of the bowls. When those were full, the food went into the cloth bags they carried on their shoulders. At some of the stalls, the food vendor knelt at the feet of the monks, who chanted over the food for a moment and then moved on to the next stall. I stood and watched for a few minutes as they repeated this process.

Heading back to my place, I turned back onto the main road, where I saw several pairs of young monks making rounds with empty silver bowls.

When I got back inside, I Googled and found that Buddhist monks in Thailand and much of Southeast Asia only eat what is given to them. They can’t engage in the labor of growing or preparing food. Alms gathering allows for this. It also aligns with their practice of not having any possessions. And it allows laypeople the opportunity to improve their karma – a practice called “making merit.”

Now, nearly four weeks into my stint here, the alms-gathering monks are a part of the landscape on my morning walk, and I am a little less prone to act like I’ve seen a unicorn when I pass one. I’ve also come to see that not all the monks are stoics who stare straight ahead when they pass another person on the street.

Some break the fourth wall and let me in – the thing that I relish the most about foreign travel. When I nod at them with a small smile, they nod back. They respond sawasdee khap (how a man say’s hello) to my sawasdee kha. And one morning, during his alms gathering with a much older monk, a little boy monk – he couldn’t have been more than 8 years old – caught my eye and grinned at me all the way down the block. He turned his head as far as he could to keep me in his sight. And I held his gaze with my own smiling eyes for as long as we were able.