Always Travel With Love In Your Heart

Written October 3, 2015

Wow, it’s been a full month since I’ve been back to Viet Nam. The country that bore me in the deep south of the Mekong delta. As I reflect on the past 5 weeks, I still feel so grateful for what travel affords someone – the perspective and new way of learning and living that simply cannot be acquired any other way.

The first three weeks I was traveling with a man who I loved and am still so in love with yet somehow not truly comfortable with his love for me. I wish I embraced it more, was more loving to him, and celebrated our love more. It was challenging though, because I was selfish too – taking in the love I had for my beloved country, for my family, for my own unique experiences.  We had been apart for over 9 years after all and he needed to understand that.

We had our adventures traveling, reflecting on travel together, and connecting to locals and foreigners. I think it left a permanent mark on us individually and we continue to reflect on it with each passing day. For me, there were systemic issues that raised my awareness from waste management, scaling businesses, tourism, development, and urban planning to the more personal things like feeling in between with my two identities – American and Vietnamese, not feeling fully confident or comfortable in my own skin, navigating the country from south to north all on my own linguistically/logistically, and encountering countless negative reviews of my country from foreigners. There was an accident where I was injured that shook us both up – reminding us to not be against each other or take one another  for granted. EVER. There were moments of adventure zipping by on our vespas to find these ancient ruins with me almost risking our lives and driving us down to a ditch. There were also extremely relaxing moments of nothingness – in the countryside, sitting at coffee shops, cruising the bay of Ha Long, where I was reminded of how content I was. There were also bad moments too that brought on the most beautiful moments.

I can think of when we took a long boat ride to an island for a cooking class and these thoughts of oh shit, our vacation is ending soon and what will I do? came rushing in. He saw those panicked eyes and immediately came to support me and understood everything I was feeling. He embraced me as I cried softly and he just said such kind and supportive words to me. Everything that needed to be said for me to not let myself get down in the dumps. At that moment in our trip, I was so grateful and had so much love from him. Those are the moments of darkness that become lightness, when you feel like you’re falling and  someone reaches out to pull you back into the lightness. That’s what I felt he did for me.

And now, I’m here, alone and without him. Not entirely alone, because now I have time to connect with family.

I thought this trip would bring me closer to knowing what I want and so far, all I can conclude is that I know I want love in my life. And I’m not talking about romantic love, but the spirit of love. It is the very essence that inspires and moves me. It’s what gets me into motion. It’s my carrier.