I think too much.

I thought I needed to get away, travel alone, be responsible...

I thought I needed to get away.
I thought I needed to stop sleeping with someone 10 years younger than me.
I thought I needed to travel on my own again.
I thought I needed to keep going with my plan.
I thought I needed to do something more “cultural” or some shit like that.
I thought I needed to be responsible.

What I started to realize, though, as I so often do, is that I think too much.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Luang Prabang wasn’t really living up the expectations I had in my head. I had originally thought I could spend a week there just doing nothing but after one day I was getting antsy.

I’d already exhausted everything to do in town. The weather was too crappy for the waterfall. My arthritic foot was telling me that my original plan to do a trek was a stupid one.

So I just wandered, ducked into a restaurant to use wifi while it rained, explored the wet night market.

I didn’t really want to be there anymore. But I really didn’t know where I wanted to be.

It’s an odd feeling knowing that you could just pick up and go anywhere in the world that you want but at the same time not be able to think of one place you want to be.

In truth, part of me wanted to go back in time three days and not leave Vang Vieng at all. To just stay with my friends. To not follow through on leaving.

In truth, part of me wanted to drop everything and go back to Vietnam to see Jacob. Who wanted me to come. But I’m still listening to that voice everyone has put in my head that I shouldn’t change my plans for a guy.

I just knew though that I didn’t really want to be there right then.

I had this vague idea that I wanted to go “home.” But not home home like Chicago or the US. Just home. Somewhere that was familiar. Somewhere that I had people I cared about. Something that I’d finally been feeling and walked away from.

And so, with no other option in my head, I booked my ticket back…