Final hours in Cambodia

As I watch the minutes tick away to my bus to Saigon tomorrow to catch my flight home, I look around at the audacity and life and utter chaos that Phnom Penh is.  Breathless at the pace of my last two weeks, I feel a gratifying sense of accomplishment and closure.  I have already started to miss some things about life here: markets, sticky rice, those big Khmer smiles.  My bags, two now, sit almost fully packed on the floor of the home I somehow managed to find and create.  Saying my goodbyes in Cambodia is different than my goodbyes in the US—here you say, “See you again.”  No one, myself included, has the sense that I am leaving forever.  The network I have built wraps close around my shoulders and transcends distance and shoddy Internet, as I know Stockholm and Singapore and all corners of this wide world await my future.  I am glad for it all, the sadness, hard work, heat, trials, victories, and education.  I will look back as the Cambodian border fades into the distance tomorrow bearing in mind the full circle I have reached deep inside my being to complete, and then turn with my chin up and spirits high to the borders ahead.