Reality.

I've found that people don't like to read negative things, or partake in negative thought or talk.  So, for that I apologize.  But here comes another one.  I can't deny where I am at in my life at the moment, it can't all be rainbows and sunshine, Lord I wish it could. 

I didn't write while I was in America.  I was there for six whole months. Sometimes I had ideas of what to write, but never got around to it.  I didn't have the motivation, the drive, to write like I do now. 

To sum it up:  It was great, and it was hard, but mostly great.  I lived with my dad and he was such a huge help with Asher.  Being able to live rent free was amazing.  I was at least able to save a bit of money that way.  But, America is expensive as shit.  My car, the insurance, the title and registration, the brakes crapping out, Amon's I-130 visa fee, gas, food, daycare.... Holy crap, daycare.  I knew it would all be costly, but it blew my mind when it totaled out every month.  I am, in fact, in a worse position now, financially, than I was before I went to the US.  So, that was a huge fail. 

But my friends and family made up for that loss in a big way.  I could not have done the solo-parenting thing if it weren't for them, and I do not know how people do it.  I had to be to work at 6am, five days a week.  Daycare didn't open until 7am.  How would that work if I didn't have my dad?  How would that work if I didn't live with my dad?  Would I have to hire a nanny?  Well, there goes another few hundred a month. 

Anyhow.  It was great, and it was hard, but mostly great. 

Now.  Being here.  Back in Thailand.  I guess, looking back, I left for a reason.  I didn't leave because everything was honkey dory here.  I didn't leave because I needed to make more money to stay here for longer.  I left because Sangkhlaburi no longer has anything for me, or for my son.  There is no hope in a place so far removed from reality.  The culture I once was in love with has shown it's true colors in the form of ignorance, drugs, and severe alcoholism.  Every day I see poverty and no way out.  Every night I hear the songs of men drinking their liver into failure.  I see husbands cheating on wives, the neighbor who got another girl pregnant while his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their son.  I hear sounds I so wish I never had to hear, and that I do not want my precious, innocent son to ever hear.  Sounds of dogs hurting, crying out in pain from being poisoned, beat to death, run over by cars.  Sounds of the hand slapping the cheek of a wife who may or may not have mouthed off.  Sounds of belts hitting the backs of innocent children, boots kicking them... And I can't escape it.  I can turn on the music and dance and put on a smile for my kid, pretend it's all OK.  But one day he will go out of my sight and he will see these things, hear these things.  I don't want that.  I know I cannot protect him from life, I know that and I don't intend to hover over him, but there is a line.  And this town is continuously crossing the line.  The other day the neighbor came over and kept saying "Asher bpai gin lao, bpai".  "Asher, go drink whiskey, go".  No.  No. No.  Amon's father offered Asher a cigarette.  Put it up to his lips before I got to him and slapped it out of his hand.  No.  It's not OK.  It is all so not OK.

While I feel all of this there is also a sense of hopelessness like I've never felt before.  How can I get out?  With my husband and my son and my sanity intact?

I am in Bangkok now, looking for a job.  Though that's not so true.  I am staying at a luxury hotel that I paid for before leaving the US, wandering through the fancy shopping mall, running on a treadmill, and swimming in a pool.  It's too soon to have to escape the jungle, but I needed to get my head together.  It still isn't together and today I have to go back there.

Maybe some idea will come to me.  I hope so.