Part I: The Irony
I took another leave of absence, as you may have noticed, from both my camera and my journal. The irony was garnering too much attention: a bit of friction between trying to fully decompress and reverting to my usual analytical obligation to meticulously document every single detail of how hard I am trying to decompress. Go figure.
But, the daily sequence had more or less set in with some form of consistency, at least: late morning breakfast, a thermal steam bath, saltwater pool mobility and stretching, and a localized afternoon activity. Despite my attempts and intentionality, frustration was still mounting. My hip and back pain were making zero clinical progress, severely limiting my ability to participate in physical activities or engage in any meaningful body work.
My spine was effectively calling out for an LNI claim with my volunteer work, so I obliged it with a scheduled Bangkok MRI just to see how close my L5-S1 disc was to leaving the building. No doubt, it was a massive bummer and setback, but my 20-something mind and my rusty joints refused to collaborate.
Part II: The Speed Bump
My sleep was actively worsening, and I was hit with some unfortunate updates: the primary one being that Katie from Chiang Mai became extremely unwell very shortly after we parted ways, forcing her fiancé to seek hospitalization for her. Her family flew in from the UK to assist, and they started a GoFundMe for medically supervised repatriation (insurance didn't cover mental health…). I contributed a fair chunk, and recently heard that she was at least cleared to return home. On top of this, Alaska Airlines and their partner airlines officially rose the middle finger to me through a misrepresentation of return flight availability - what should have been an easy switch of a flight left me flightless and either out of pocket to restore my original flight or gambling through the Middle East on Qatar Airways. This only perpetuated the poor sleep as I was forced to spend hours on the phone with Alaska in the dead of the night, while simultaneously researching next best options.
Part III: The Scooter, The Temple, and The Beach
On one of the first rainless afternoons of the week, I rented a local motorbike for 300 Baht, roughly ten dollars, for the day. It was a raw feeling of freedom that came with the cool smell of distant rain while the wind hit my face on narrow, empty two-lane roads. With the tolerable hum of the 157cc motor, I felt every dip and curve of the asphalt through the handlebars as I kept an easy, comfortable pace through some gentle hills and sharp turns. It was a perfect meditation, broken only by a couple precarious hills and a brief chase from a hungry stray dog. A quick twist of the throttle and some leg lifts kept me easily out of range.
Rejuvenated, I added my name to the next day’s sign up sheet for a guided temple visit just down the road, which unexpectedly transformed into a completely private tour when the other resort guests canceled. The main receptionist hopped in the truck to be my tour guide, taking me through the grounds of the small temple, explaining the ceiling murals depicting the life of Buddha, showing me the crematory, and arranging a formal blessing by a resident monk.
I also ended up at White Sand Beach once more for a mojito on the sand. The waves were crashing, shielded by a partially overcast sky, and devoid of humans. The sensations grounded me. At one point, my mind wandered from the horizon, locking entirely onto the sand crabs, tracking their hyper-agile, multi-directional sprints with intense visual presence. They popped up out of nowhere, legs blurring as they traversed sideways and diagonally over the coarse grains, then disappeared instantly back into the sand. Almost hypnotic, I felt as though I was watching the sand itself move. It took an aggressive amount of visual focus just to track their beige camouflage against the sand. The heavy, mineral smell of the sea was thick in the air, the salt breeze stuck to my skin, and while the humidity lured me waist deep in the water, the warm, crashing water completely washed away my old 2014 snorkeling PTSD from that severe skin rash.
Part IV: The Reckoning
In a moment of questionable judgment, I signed up for two back-to-back Muay Thai sessions. The hour-long activity covered entry-level and beginner movements: basic jab, block, and kick combinations taught by none other than Mod. His father raised him to box, but his mother disapproved. To appease her and to find more of a social community, he began playing soccer at 12, where he played to a semi-pro level and coached prior to coming to the resort.
My educational background argued towards core strengthening and hip stability, but my stir-crazy brain decided that the best remedy for an orthopedic train wreck was repeatedly kicking a hanging sandbag. Fortunately, my toe was essentially a non-issue at that point, which effectively allowed me to close one door and open the next. I self-diagnosed my back pain and leg symptoms as a likely disc herniation and subsequent nerve root irritation, with minimal tolerance for rotation and impact. At the femoroacetabular joint, my torn hip labrum was not going to enjoy frequent elevated, circular movements. Distally, chronic ankle instability was set to be tested on raw, unpadded wooden floors lined with sweat (seriously - I required a separate towel at all times to wipe the ground underneath me for my own safety and anyone else’s).
So, on this episode of burnout recovery: I chose my pill. Sit on the sidelines (beautiful as they might have been) and spiral down an anxiety-lined black hole of catastrophization. Or salvage what I could by learning new skills, keeping distracted from the degradation of my spine, and letting Mod help me accelerate the process.
