when i was in thailand, we met this famous biologist who had once been a professor and on the discovery channel. he was sitting alone, speaking loudly, going from table to table greeting other guests as they were old friends. he had a coffee cup by his side that mysteriously smelled like booze, even though it was a buddhist holiday and all restaurants were dry. turns out, that this man had lost his daughter the day before. his traveling partner/wife/love of his life was in a hospital in france and he was all alone.
he told us the story of how he even got to south east asia in the first place. after 30 years of marriage, he had an affair with a 25 year old masters student. the student then had an affair. devastated, he picked up his life and moved to south east asia where he met his new wife while traveling. he said that she was his everything and had never experienced a love like that.
a few watermelon shakes later, he started to tell us advice about everything. apparently your nail beds can tell a lot about your life. the main thing that he spoke about though was fear. i had a crochet tank top on, and he told me to take my bandeau off and show my nipples to the world. now normally i would have thought this behavior to be extremely creepy coming from a 60 year old man in bangkok, but he wasn't asking to see my boobs, he was telling me something a lot more significant. he kept saying, "why won't you do it?" "what are you afraid of?" it's normal, it's human, why do we have to always live within the confines of society?
this interaction is in my thoughts everyday. i think we all spend too much time living in fear and doing what we think we're supposed to do. whether it be staying in a job because we're scared to see what else is out there, or staying in a relationship that we know is damaging because we don't want to be alone. never moving forward for fear of failing, or just the fear of anything that isn't normal.
for the past two years i feel like i've been living for everyone else but myself. change is going to feel so good. i tip my hat to my friends that have already done it. and to mr. o'shea.
