Imperfections

I’ve got a hole in my leg. It’s about as big as your average coin. I managed to get this addition (subtraction?) to my anatomy on Sunday morning. I was still up from Saturday night and my reflexes were dulled from too much drink and too little sleep. I made a joke at a girl’s expense and in retaliation she flipped my sun bed. I hit the table on the other side and got cut in several places. Most of the injuries weren’t in any way significant, except for the chunk of flesh gouged out of my leg. The girl was suitably contrite and very apologetic. She was only trying to tilt it, she promised. I guess she didn’t know her own strength.

Funnily enough, it has only affected me a little. Though it still bleeds occasionally when I walk around, showering is difficult and it will doubtlessly scar, my mood has barely changed. Yes, I have to walk very slowly now, yes my life essence is staining my clothes and yes I can’t go swimming in the last few days I have here; but somehow I’m managing to take it all in stride (no pun intended).

The scar will be a permanent reminder of this journey. It’s quite suitable that it happened right at the end. It’s almost like a mark of a right of passage I’ve completed; which is quite fitting, seeing as I have certainly learned (evolved?) a lot since I’ve come to this country. I might as well see it as a mark for the entire time I spent in Asia. Seven and a half years of travelling, living, experiencing and moving. It was a time of a great deal of movement, which makes a scar on my leg quite symbolic, really.

Still, I think I’d prefer it as a reminder of Palolem, with all its trails and tribulations. This place – which looks like paradise but was in so many ways the hardest part of my journey – has left its mark on me.

Maybe I’ll also finally slow down a bit. Not only physically (which is inevitable as I have to limp to not put any strain on the injured leg) but mentally. In many ways I think that’s already happening, but maybe this will be a catalyst for further slowing down. Maybe once I’ve slowed down enough I’ll be able to find the time to actually get things done. It’s funny, but it really feels like the more frantically you try to do things, the fewer things you ultimately get done. The little things swallow up your time, so that there’s nothing left for the big things.

Eight days left. Eight days to limp around this place of bright sun and deep shadow. Eight days in this tainted paradise. Maybe that isn’t fair, maybe it isn’t the place that is tainted but us; maybe we carry it within us and bring it here. We are, after all, only human; we thrive on creating drama and conflict where before there was none.

I imagine that it only becomes starker because it seems so out of place. We’re the same, but we somehow assume that we should be different. We ask ourselves ‘how can things go so wrong when we’re in such a beautiful place?’ when a better question would be, ‘why do we expect our location to influence our nature?’

We are subtly changed by where we are, but we remain fundamentally the same. There is no perfect place, because we are not perfect. It took me nearly eight years of travel to realise that. And with that realisation I'm now finally ready to go 'home'.