The day the world grew small

It was a shock to me, the first time I realized how small the world and fast the airplanes were. I had flown to Aberdeen, Scotland months earlier on my own and it felt like it took forever. But that Sunday, at the end of a week long visit from my mom, the truth surfaced. She and I had breakfast together before I took her to the airport, and as I cleaned up and settled in to the silence of my empty dorm room it hit me that she would be having dinner with my family in Michigan that evening. Breakfast in Aberdeen and dinner in Detroit- I couldn't fathom it.  

Until that point, my family back home felt so far away- an ocean and a time difference and a very expensive phone call stood between us- but that Sunday, everything changed. Sometimes, it's not about being able to see people all the time, but knowing that you can, if you need to. 

Even though the 11 years since Scotland have dramatically shrunk the distances home for expats, Bangkok still feels a whole world away. I no longer have to spend billions on a phone bill (truth, I never paid the large phone bills I racked up in Aberdeen, my dad did that :) or run to a computer lab to send mass email updates to family and friends. I Skype from my living room for free, text with my siblings, and keep a blog of pictures and stories. I watch the same Tigers games on TV the next day and follow everyone's day to day lives on "can't live with it and can't live without it" Facebook. 

But nothing, nothing beats being there. So sometimes, you just gotta get on the plane, shrink the world, and pop in for a few days. Travel hours v. Contact hours, it's not worth it. Dollars per day, it's not worth it. But I knew within 5 minutes if getting out of the car what I had suspected all along: it is absolutely worth it. 100%. My world got a lot smaller this week, in the best way possible. I don't plan to make it a habit of popping into family functions, just as my mom did not make it a habit of having breakfast on one continent and dinner in another. But to know that I can? Changes everything.