2012: A year in review

Where to start. 2012 was by far the most incredible and inspiring year of my life for numerous reasons. It was a year of change, exploration, challenge, and happiness. This multi-part post will be an abbreviated version of the thoughts and experiences that consumed me throughout the year.

So, where to start? In order to put things in perspective, I must preface with a short summary of what lead to  me making 2012 the most incredible year of my life.

It was sometime in the summer of 2011 when I made a decision. A decision based on necessity. I needed to leave San Francisco and the lifestyle I had come to know there. I needed to know the rest of the world was not as insane as the USA. I needed to know that I could escape this way of life and be happy doing so. So I made a vague, but certain, decision to leave the country at the beginning of 2012. I did not know where to at the time. All I knew was that I would spend the rest of the year accruing as much money as possible in order to fund my escape, and I did exactly that. I worked insane hours and made the most money I ever have. I was determined to leave everything behind; possessions, lifestyle, all of it. And I did. I gave away or sold nearly everything I owned. Thousands of dollars worth or merchandise was given to charity (or my friends). I had an urge, no a NEED, to shed the materialistic skin from which I had been born. I was a product of the consumerist way of life bestowed upon me by my country, and was disgusted by this. My urge to leave became so intense toward the end of my time in SF that I at times questioned my level of sanity. But I was not crazy. This life was crazy. Regardless of all the amazing experiences and resources SF had provided me with, it became a symbol of everything I hated about American culture, and I had to escape.

I booked a flight to Thailand for January 25th, 2012. This is where I would begin. I would be meeting a lovely girl there, whom I had met while she was traveling in SF, and spend one month traveling Thailand with her. I would then fly back to SF for a few days to settle some affairs before getting on a one way flight to Merida, Mexico. Destination unknown. I spent most of my time in January partying excessively and not enough getting my affairs in order. Because of this I left a lot of loose ends, but didn't care at the time. I now owned what I had fit in to my backpack, plus one or two boxes of necessary items I had shipped home. Nothing else.

Then the day finally came to leave for Thailand. I hadn't slept for 2 nights straight when I got on my flight. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of sanity, and had most certainly been partaking in some insane activities.  My body and mind had been pushed to absolute extremes. I had spent the last two nights (really the last 2 months) partying hard and getting tattooed, and now here I was on a flight to a foreign country with a backpack to meet a girl I didn't really know. My excitement was palpable, so was my anxiety. I slept nearly the entire 25 hours of travel to Thailand. When I finally arrived in Bangkok, I experienced a "what the fuck just happened" moment that lasted quite a while. I didn't doubt any of the decisions that lead me there, but felt like I was actually existing in reality for the first time in months. It was a bizarre sensation.

To be continued...