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ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 28

shifted my weight too fast. Then I felt a wobble. And then a moment
of terror as I grabbed a fistful of front brake and felt myself catapulted over the handlebars. Before I knew what had happened, I was
tumbling across the pavement.
By the time my body skid to a stop, I was done with that country.
I was done lying to myself about having a good time, about loving
the night life at the expense of everything else, and about wanting
to stay. That wasn’t when I stopped telling myself the big lie, however: That this was all my fault. In my head, this was Vietnam’s fault.
The country clearly didn’t want me there. I didn’t blame the people,
they had always been very kind to me-- At the sight of the accident
even, a Vietnamese woman, working in the McDonalds I had nose
dived in front of, ran outside with a first aid kit and spent a good
half hour bandaging me, before bringing me inside for a free soft
serve ice cream cone. I should have been grateful for her hospitality
and the fact that I wasn’t dead, but my mind was on something else
entirely. God I fucking hate this place. From that night forward, all
of my plans focused on getting the hell out of Vietnam.
This proved tedious, seeing as I had no money saved for a plane
ticket and was in no condition to work for said money. As I lay
healing in my blood soaked sheets over the next days and weeks, I
daydreamed alot about being back home in Chicago. About how my
life was really going to get started once I was back around family
and friends, where I could get a job I enjoyed and finally start going
to the gym. These thoughts dominated my brain when I was well
enough to go to work. They dominated my brain when I got off work
and was sitting at the bar around the corner from my apartment.
20
Eventually I had an epiphany: how I felt in Vietnam was exactly
how I’d felt in America, before I left. While my college friends were
out getting jobs or applying for post grad, I was sitting around
thinking about where I wasn’t. Man I can’t wait to get my real life
started in Vietnam. Nothing but new experiences and bettering

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