Third Trip Going Back Home

I am travelling alone, again. This is my third trip flew back to Malaysia. I realized everytime when I travel alone, I like to write something. I wrote when I flew from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and then wrote again on the trip from KLIA to LAX. Perhaps this is the best thing to do to kill time while waiting for my connecting flight. Now sitting in Tao Yuan International Airport in Taipei waiting for 2 hours 40 minutes for my connecting flight, I write again.

Regardless internatianal flight or domestic flight, I always travel alone. I used to enjoy that a lot and I used to have peaceful feeling even in the crowded airport and waiting room. This time, I am not sure why but my heart is not as peaceful and as excited as the previous trips. While my friend took me to LAX, my mind still was not really think about the trip. Not until I saw the planes took off from the airport, then I suddenly realized that I was going to fly few hours later. What was in my mind? Hmmm... I am not sure. Perhaps too many things to think of and then ended up nothing is clear.

If I put a ruler on the world map, connecting Malaysia and California, I think my heart is in neither end. It is now in the middle of no where. I am not sure what to expect this time when I arrive home. I remember first time left home to America, my feeling was so complicated. I wasn't sure what to expect, I wasn't sure what was going to happen and I wasn't sure whether I would feel homesick. Then I read an article saying a guy needed to leave his hometown in China and flew all the way to America. He needed to leave his beloved family behind to go there gain more money to help his family. The write wrote that at the time he arrived the airport in America, he ran to the water fountain and drank mouth full of water. He wiped off his mouth and told himself he would not look back. He friends then asked him what was the reason. He replied, "If I have made a choice to leave my hometown, then why should I keep looking back and torture myself with the past and memories? I am going to continue my life and look forward!"

I was impressed, and I am still impressed by his words. I believe I am really inspired by him. The first time when I left my hometown, I told myself not to look back. I did it and I really did not have hard time missing home. Then I found out I apply this theory to my life. If I were on board in a ship, I am the one sitting in front of the ship and looking in front instead of sitting at the back of the ship and looking at the scenary that has passed.

I do have memories like everybody else. Some of them are pleasant and some of them are not. Both the sweet and the bitter is part of the memory that cannot be wiped off. However, I know I have choices. I choose to enlarge the sweet ones and zoom out the bitter ones. And then, I lock them both at a very corner of my heart. I choose to live my current life and looking forward at the future instead of living in the past, in the memories. Memories do come out on the surface once in awhile as well as bitter memories do haunt me every now and then, but I am not allowing them to be the center of my life.

Perhaps this time, I am too occupied by the busy steps of my life and I leave no time to organize my thoughts as well as my feelings going back home. I still have about 5 hours to do it now before I arrived Malaysia. I guess I still will not stop smilling when I see the land of Malaysia.