Tuesday, 22 November, 2022 – Elias has started his second to last full day in Thailand, Wednesday, 23 November. Other than eating and taking pictures of food, to build a sort of visual recipe book, I am not sure what he is doing. He left the majority of his belongings at Ward’s house. Ward is traveling for work so the housekeeper has to let Elias in to get his bag.
Elias said in a recent text to David that Libby planned to take him on a hike. Based on the GPS data on the images, he may have been near here, just north of Chiang Mai.
Here’s some pictures from the hike, I think.
I was in Hong Kong for ten months. I remember coming home and thinking, “I have changed and everyone else stayed the same.” I thought it would be so obvious how much I had changed, but no one seemed to notice. Probably because a lot had happened in ten months in their lives and it is not as though the world stopped when I left for Hong Kong.
I hope that if Elias feels the same way, like he changed and nothing at home changed, he won’t feel distanced from us. He probably will, though. A little, anyway. We were not there with him everyday – despite my best efforts to intrude – and there are things that he experienced which no one at home will understand, things he cannot describe, maybe things he doesn’t want to describe.
I also remember thinking, at the same time I thought everyone’s lives just stood still, that they had gone on without me. There were so many things to catch up on, good and bad, and I felt left out. Even though I knew that was completely irrational. My father wrote to me every day. Yes, every day. I did not miss out on things that were happening. And yet, I still felt that way.
All of which is to say, it’s complicated. It’s complicated, going away and complicated, being home. If it is not an easy reentry for Elias, maybe when it is not an easy reentry, because some things will be easy, I would like him to know it is okay. I want him to know he is okay, even when it’s not easy.