subject: about life
sent: friday, december 07, 2001 10:04 am

'life is what happens while you are busy making other plans'. that's a sentence John Lennon said some years ago, one that I used as a signature line this summer. and now it happened. not life, but death. happened back home while I was in Asia.

the father of my boyfriend died. he had health problems for several years, so his death didn't come completely unexpected. but even though it's a simple fact that everybody has to die sooner or later, and even though we all knew that he would rather die sooner, it seems hard to accept it when death actually happens to a person you know. I received the sad news in an internet-café, and from one minute to the next, all my travel plans for Asia seemed irrelevant. life can change in a day, it's true.

I packed my backpack and headed to the airport, and after 2 days of travelling I'm back home now - although my boyfriend didn't want me to fly back, and said that I should stay in Asia and continue my journey, that he could manage the situation. but I just couldn't imagine myself hopping joyfully through Vietnam and Cambodia while he and his mother were trying to make it through Christmas somehow.

so in one way, this is the end of my journey. and in another way, it isn't - on a larger scale, flying home was simply the next step in the long journey called life. a journey that probably doesn't even end when our body dies - at least that's what most of the people in Asia believe, to them a lifetime is nothing but another step on the way towards enlightment - the one destination you can't buy a Lonely Planet guidebook for...

D.

go back home