always something to lose

First one night I managed to lose my little coin purse but it also had debit cards in it, some ID like a driver license for California I don’t care about, and maybe another card or so I could care about. Much more serious was yesterday when my wife was out finishing some work on some land she was able to get. She lost the bag that carries all her medicine. Perhaps I’ve mentioned she has high blood pressure and sugar so the medicine bag with all the meds in it is carefully guarded if we go places. Last night though when she got home she was despondent. She sent her friend on her Moto to go look at the places she had been. Hours of riding around basically with nothing to show for it. We talked last night and she had told me first thing about the medicine. It always means she must go back to pharmacies and perhaps see a nurse to get some of it back.

A bright spot in all this was the story she told me of waiting to get the papers for the land finalized when the man next to her told her that his wife was the most important thing in the world to him. She looked at him astonished and happy. Alin told him I have told her many times she is the most important.

Even with losing the bag, she found a feeling and emotion. I figure there is always something to lose and then there is something to find as well. We always have a thing happen we wish not. Truth is for awhile I felt depressed and bad around the house. I had not told her because she gets upset and we end up talking a long time about the why and what of it. It is always the same for me and I end up also journaling it which just gives me the chance to relive it vicariously days hence. So I felt lacking and like I had lost this basic feeling of life around here.

When my wife came home we talked a long time. She held my hand and touched my face. Told me many times I was the most important to her. We figured out how to fix the medicine issues and she’s off this morning on her Moto getting it done.

So there is no moral to the story. I don’t think there always is a moral to each story. Sometimes it’s the words of loss and finding themselves and not some wonderful lesson learned. We never really learn how not to be human or make mistakes or say things another person takes a different way. I have to say being married to a Khmer woman creates a whole new level of this. Alin speaks pretty good English and switches effortlessly even to French when she wants and can talk in Khmer and English at the same time without losing a beat. But the bigger things are difficult. Expressing feelings sometimes is hard for her. The words may be there in Khmer but she struggles with getting them out in English. From there is this concept of loving someone. Ever try to explain the why of that? I don’t think it’s possible to do it. So Alin just says,

what is in my heart my love

And that’s where this mysterious love thing rests. No explaining it. No rationalizing it. No defining it. It just is. Perhaps like many things in life that we lose or gain. We cannot express them because there are no words built for them. We trust the other person to “just know”.

So I guess I can move from the loss of a thing to the finding of more important things. Things which don’t fit in bags that carry medicine or small purses. Things said and felt on a Wednesday evening when life seemed both down and up. In the end, I fixed the things and Alin heard yet again she is the most important to me. It is hard for her like I said to say she loves me. Sometimes it comes out almost at a whisper and she looks at me imploringly. It dawns on me then like I have mentioned just how different yet the same Khmer people are. When I found Alin, a person here told me not to expect love or romance. It always was with Alin I had both but what really changed was such a short time later realizing she is the most important person in my life to me and telling her. It was then things changed in so many ways. I just give her all the money and she takes care of us. She jokingly says she must give an allowance to her American husband. But the real thing is never believe what some expat tells you about a thing. Especially a heart and soul thing. And that’s where love resides for Alin. From Kep, Cambodia; this was always one of my favorite photos of her on the beach.

I felt this one captured both the essence of the woman and one of the things we enjoy the most in life. Going somewhere. We have not done that in awhile and life events and expenses have curtailed us finding time to be alone in a place. In October, we both hope to go find and lose some things. Just please not money purses, passports, or prescription medicine bags.

I tested this blogpost and found it accomplishes nothing whatsoever. So it must be good!