It's an incredible rhetorical question and yes, yes I do!
Every single morning, I wake up, look out the window at the beautiful lush farm I live on and think this same amazing thing...I live in Thailand? I live here?!
How is this possible? How can this be?
Then I realize, it was as simple as making a choice, setting a goal and not succumbing to fear.
Of course it didn't happen over night, nor was the road to living abroad quite as easy as I make it sound. Believe me, there were some challenges, a few difficult times, and all of the shit that one steps in along the road to doing what we want to do in life. But, back to what I just said, we didn't succumb to fear...fear of a new place, fear of new culture, fear of new people, fear of not speaking the language, fear of the unknown. We refused to allow ourselves to succumb to fear of all of those things in life that we both can predict or are beyond our control. We didn't give in to any of that crap, especially the fear frought opinions of naysayers and fear mongers. Luckily, we scraped most of those toxic individuals off the bottoms of our shoes a long time ago.
Instead we looked at Thailand, Chiang Mai specifically, as an adventure. We saw it as a place that was affordable, friendly, lush and beautiful, creative and artistic. A place where we could grow individually and together in a million ways that we knew of and a million more we didn't. A place where we could leave the corporate world behind, and follow our own creative endeavors, do those things we love...write, paint, create, dream. We dreamed and saw a city and country that welcomed us, could be our home.
Even as I write this post, I look out my giant picture window onto mango trees, lush green grass, rice fields and cows. Nothing to distract me, nothing to upset me, nothing to draw away my feelings of creativity. I feel energized, alive and real. I feel lucky.
I'm done moving, I'm done struggling, I'm done with corporations and committees and human resources, I'm done with wasted conversations with people that don't really matter to me, I'm done with all this and more.
I write this and say this so calmly now, so clearly...just as a cow beyond in the rice field lets out a giant belch.