Experiencing experiences

I’m interested in experiences.  I always have been, in my own way, but as I’m getting older, I’m more willing to take chances to have experiences.  Much like moving to Thailand and going to the market and not knowing the language, the money, or even what I was doing.  I’d go and point and try.  Why not?

In my younger years, I was like that with drugs and drink.  You got it, I’ll try it.  Why not?  Well, because drugs, should have been the answer.  

I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, I’ve jumped off a perfectly good bridge… Both with a cord tied to my feet and a few times just into the waters below.  And yes, I could have died.  Covid also could have killed me.  Or any of the surgeries I’ve had.  Or crossing the street.  The heart condition.  Cancer.  The mini strokes and blood clots in my lungs when I was in my 20s.  A lot of things could have killed me.  Still could.  

We get one shot at life.  Unless I’m mistaken and someone can prove to me that there is a life after this life that this life is just a warm up or in some way gives us currency in the next life.  And keep your Jesus to yourself and the “blah blah afterlife in heaven blah blah”.  Because I’m talking REAL life.  Not the invisible man in the sky who tisk-tisks at you when you eat meat on Fridays.  As a quick aside… I’m the BAD one for not believing in God, but you’re good because you need some invisible man in the sky to make sure you don’t do wicked things.  Here’s the easy part; Save your money, don’t give it to a church and live a good life.  Don’t kill.  Don’t rape.  Be kind.  I don’t know why the threat of fire and brimstone is needed to help you NOT do this, but I’d think that says more about you, not less about me.  Think about that for a reason.  Oh, and if you vote Republican because abortion…. Just because YOU are on a diet, doesn’t mean I need to watch what I eat.  It means you are on a diet.  So, as noted earlier, maybe we’d ALL be better off if you just kept your Jesus to yourself.

Because I’ve experienced that as well.  Buddhist temple.  Mosque.  Synagogue.  Church.  Hinduism.  Read some of those holy books as well.  Dated a muslim.  A Hindi.  A jew.  Christians.  Married an atheist.  Maybe if MORE people did that and were open to that, we’d have a different world than we have right now.  Because I’ve offered to take my own mother to Mosque and we told, “I HAVE religion, I don’t see why my going to see heathens and terrorists pray will do them any good.  Why can’t they just come to church?”  I think that pretty well sums up America right now.  No knowledge.  No outreach.   You’re poor… Must have chosen it.  Or made bad choices.  Underemployed… Go to a better school.  Get a better degree.  Slum housing…. See previous.  Made better choices there and you’d have better here.  No one wants to experience poverty, but they have no qualm condemning others to it.  Socialized medicine, free college, day care and child care provided to all, family leave time guaranteed; we can’t have that!  It’s socialism and that’s what they practiced in Soviet Russia and WE can’t have that!!!!!!  Oh, that poor bank lost Billions, better give them money.  That’s not socialism, that’s too big to fail.

I want to go back 20 years, but keep J and the Kiddo because I think they’re both pretty cute, and see and experience the world.  All of it.  Asia.  Africa.  Australia.  Europe and the Americas.  ALL of it.  But I can’t.  So, I can start late and just keep going.

Tats and piercings, food and drink, cars, bikes, scooters, tuk-tuks, trucks, trains, clothing, shoes, life!  I want to experience life.  In living color!  Someone in Bangkok dies in a traffic related accident every 84 seconds.  I still get in cars and take Grab places.  Because MOST of those fatalities are Scooter or Motorcycle related, but also because why not!?!  

I was raised in fear.  Don’t.  Don’t follow your interests, you wanna end up poor?  Don’t eat that, you don’t know if it’s safe, that person made it on the street, not in a restaurant.  Don’t go THERE, it’s dirty and unsafe.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t want to travel outside the US, the water isn’t safe.  Don’t want to eat non-American food, you don’t know what they put in it.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.

I want to do, do do.  See.  Experience.  Taste.  Feel.  Know.  Try.

Because the worst that can happen is I die.  Second worse, I get sick.  Hate to be flip about it, but I’ve been dead.  And sick.  And yet I write this and got to kiss Kiddo this morning and watch Mumma walk to work with the Kiddo.  What’s left besides the experiences?

So, we experience.  We do.  We try.  Even the Kiddo.  She wants to try foods and go places.  She wants to see more of Thailand and the world.  She wants to say Can and Do, not Can’t and Don’t.  She asked to try my pork rice the other day because it smelled good to her.  She asked to try raw Kale last night because, “I’ve never had kale before and I wanna try it no cooked so I can know if I like it.  Besides, when it’s cooked, you and mumma will tell me to eat it anyway, so I want to know if it’s better crunchy or cooked.”  When I was 4, I was told, “You won’t like it” about most things I wanted to try. 

Everyone warned me about Thai massage.  It’ll hurt.  It’s intense.  One of J’s coworkers said it was so bad she threw up from pain.  I have a Thai Massage once a month, sometimes twice.  

We are coming into the rainy season… And we are excited for it.  Because what’s gonna happen?  The condo floods?  We get wet?  We need to modify plans because it’s raining too hard?  Oh well!  The condo will dry and be repaired.  We can change clothes.  Plans can change.  It happens.  

And, in the interest of experiences, time for me to go get a juice from the juice lady at the market and eat some food that I’m unsure what it is or what’s in it from a random stall at the market because why not?  Let’s go, Kiddo… time to experience something new and interesting today!