As we are getting ready to leave Thailand in about a month, we start to look back on those last 7 years. What we did, what we would do differently now, what we want to do, and how we have changed. On the latter, I just realized yesterday how different I am from the person who arrived here 7 years ago. It all started from a sentence I told the Husband yesterday : “I am happy to quit smoking, I can give up my wine, but damn I won’t stop running”. This may sound to you like a weird sentence, but see, we just started our freediving course last week. So now you understand about the smoking and drinking. But why running ? Well, freediving is a very demanding sport (I will come back to this on a later post) and, especially at the beginning, you should avoid any activity that would create lactic acid in your muscles, keeping you from being able to completely relax in the water. So my coach has been urging me to stop running. Now to understand how this sentence is so strange coming from me, you need to meet me 7 years ago : young party animal, chain smoker (French in a word), absolute meat lover, night owl, and against any type of exercise. And here I am today : vegetarian, non smoker, very occasional drinker, early riser and freediving everyday while preparing for a marathon ! If somebody would have told me 7 years ago, that I would ever say such a sentence, I would have never believed it.
As I was re-reading my very first post in this blog, I realized that I have achieved one of my very goals, to simplify my life. While we were getting ready to move out of the country, we went through all our stuff. After 2 weeks of work, we finally got rid of most of it, and ended up with 6 boxes of personal belongings that we sent to the US and about 2 bags of traveling items. It is like starting from scratch, we now own a few objects, books and souvenirs, everything useless was discarded or donated. But most of all I feel like I have simplified my way of life : I have cut out the heavy drinking and smoking, drastically cut down on meat, and I am now following a healthy diet based on whole foods and produces, while exercising 4 to 5 times a week. I will be leaving Asia much lighter than I arrived !
