I seemed to have lost my voice and my way in the world. Anyone have any suggestions on how to regain it??
An excerpt from The Asian Quest blog when I had my voice:
I have my friends and family to thank for pulling me out of my
pathetic, privileged, depression and over-introspection of the meaning of MY
life while creating space for this new normalcy. It took seven weeks of an internal quarrel to
realize that asking the meaning of MY life was not the right question. It was
the egocentric question that we are taught to ask. Pray about. Teach about.
Preach about. Read about. Talk about. Slit wrists over, starve over, get high
over, binge over. It is a selfish, lonely question. Pulling the camera out of
my bag that day and leaving it on the bed gave me nothing to hide behind.
Nothing to create a wall. Nothing to make me different. All of the sudden, I
could see the whole picture, and although I still didn’t have the answers, somehow
I know knew the question to ask was "what is the meaning of life?" Exclusive turned inclusive. Answers were right
in front of my. Every day. Every night. Every moment. Changing the question meant
that I could share laughs, and smiles, and love and tenderness with strangers. I
became a character in the photos. I became part of the memories and stories. I
found new places and talked to travelers from around the world. I got drunk on
Chilean wine on the roof of a Swiss hotel in Cambodia while learning and
relearning and learning, yet again, how to attempt to say one word in Khmer
from the female bartender “សន្តិភាព,” which means peace. At
the market, my green eyes met the soulful brown eyes of the woman selling fish…and
she laughed with me. I ate sour beans dipped in msg with the young, pregnant manager
of Jed’s Bar. And finally, we could recognize our exotic differences and obvious
similarities. And we could laugh at them all.
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