I’ve been here ten years now. Left Iowa in 2012 and always thought something would bring me back, but nothing did. Lost a lot by not making better plans. Lost houses, everything I had in storage…in the long run, who cares? Not even me.
Here’s what the vegetation looks like around Chiang Mai.
The hour is late. Later than I think, but what I think doesn’t really matter in the long run, for it is Fate that holds all the cards. My predictions rarely coincide with reality. Reality and I have never been close. We have always ignored each other as often as possible.
I just turned seventy and today I bought a minimal medical insurance policy that applies only here in Thailand, where medical costs are a fraction of what they are in the West, as well as minuscule term life insurance policy that they will not offer me next year, for by then I will be too old to be a satisfactory risk. My wife and I thought it would be the prudent thing to do, for watching my expatriate friends launch GoFundMe campaigns on social media to cover their medical bills seems, oh I don’t know…sad.
My Thai wife assures me that the six thousand dollar term life insurance benefit would cover a proper disposal for these tired bones. Nobody gets buried around here. It’s all about cremation. Your coffin need not be plush nor substantial, for it’s only going to be in use for a few hours.
When Asian people notice my long ear lobes they assure me I am due a long life. Like the Buddha, my ear lobes hang low enough to flap in the breeze. I will live well into my nineties. That could either be a blessing or a curse, depending on how things work out.
In fact, even though my wife is twenty years my junior, she may predecease me, for Thai people don’t tend to live as long as Westerners.
I’ve seen infirm and elderly foreigners leaning on the arms of much younger Thai women, and the attraction seems to the casual observer more centered on nursing than romance. Especially in Pattaya, the coastal city of a million people a two-hour drive from Bangkok, where poor Thai girls from the provinces go to find work, these pairings are common. If equal numbers of Thai elderly of both sexes exist, they are in hiding. They are not out and about in Pattaya, or Bangkok shopping malls.
There are no victims here, simply a mutually beneficial work situation. Forget about first world notions of romance and intimacy based on “equality” whatever that might be. Why call it “exploitation?” It’s a free market in action.
Thailand serves the same function for the world at large that California served for the United States. It’s the place you wind up when you bomb out of every other place. Many an alcoholic abandoned his family in St. Louis or Omaha and drank himself to death in Los Angeles or San Francisco. He was not alone in this, for there were legions of men just like him in California’s coastal cities, using alcohol to dissolve the shackles that bound them back east.
In many third world countries these men arrive from all over the world: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, the United States. They’re not in search of anything; in fact they’re in full retreat. The reason the language barrier doesn’t slow them down is because they’re not interested in communicating with the women whose services they purchase. When it comes to these men, there’s literally no one home. If you look into their eyes, it’s like staring at a stroke victim. Error Message 404 Server Not Found.
Some of them can still take care of themselves. They shower and shave. Others, not so much. It doesn’t matter to the ladies who are waiting for them to die. The younger bar girls have many of these men “one the line,” and their major problem is keeping all these geezers straight. The men return to their home countries, clean out another bank or retirement account, and then return to their “new home.” Often it’s a small room in a high rise. Often the room has a balcony for drying clothes and where the air-conditioner vents.
If the room is on a sufficiently high floor, the balcony can also be used as a final exit to the ever-diminishing existence these men have chosen.
The Land of Smiles, they call themselves
Something’s not right. That’s almost as dire as saying “something’s wrong.” I’m seeing double. I’m worried all the time and my thoughts are negative. If I knew what to do to fix it, I would, but I don’t.
I can only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. Awake, I go to the computer and browse social media, having illusory contact with others, posting images and captions I don’t really care about and forget the moment I press “enter.” Others in different time zones skim them and forget them just as quickly. The whole forced and artificial process almost sickens me, yet I return to it every time I wake up because I don’t know what else to do with myself.
Minor problems worry me, and I dwell of them for hours. Now that I’m retired and living within my means I don’t really have any big issues, but being 69 and living on the other side of the world from where I spent most of my life is proving to be a conundrum of its own. Is this a symptom of senility?
It could be that I’m just unwilling to relax and enjoy the present moment. I’m addicted to anxiety, to problem creation and the attempts to solve them. They might not be real but they’re all I can focus on.
We recently enjoyed Halloween. Even here in Thailand, the days get noticeably shorter this time of year, and the temperature drops at night. That’s a good thing. Thus begins our high tourist season and the hotels, restaurants and massage shops finally become profitable again. For this they endured eight months of suspended animation.
I find myself remembering those who have crossed the veil before me. The older I get, the more of them there are for me to recall. They had distinct personalities and with little effort I can imagine having a conversation with any one of a number of them. So where are they now?
I find it more difficult to imagine that they no longer exist than to visualize them somewhere else, in another dimension, one at which I will arrive any day now. I can easily admit that the body dies, but not the spirit. It can’t simply vanish, can it?
For some reason, over the last two weeks more than six of my friends have suffered heart attacks and strokes. Vascular surgery and stents have given them a newly extended warranty, but that temporary fix will eventually lapse. Since death is certain and forestalling it a doomed enterprise, why not just surrender as soon as the grim reaper knocks?
It would be easier if all this weren’t so hypothetical.
How lucky can one man get? I ask myself this occasionally, when I’m not actively focused on what I lack. How much time do I have left? There’s no way to know that, so I might as well act as if time were running out and I’d better hurry.
These are the ways I drive myself crazy. These questions and compulsions come from inside me, not from outside. The world isn’t insane, I am.
If you hang around people who seem content, either they really are or they’re hiding their inner turmoil. Maybe serial killers seem to have the Buddha nature. At least we’re sure they have the ability to create a plan of action and follow-through. Those are qualities I sorely lack.
And then there is the issue of codependency. I’m always worried what other people think of me, how they feel at this moment, and those worries preclude any chance I could champion my own interests. Again, serial killers suffer from none of that. They don’t care what their victims think or feel.
But I am lucky not to have been born a serial killer, nor to have become one along the bumpy road of life. Yes, things could be worse, much worse. For this I am grateful.
a few more pics from my rides in the hills
Maybe it was the fresh air and the puffy clouds, but what a beautiful setting!
geezersabroad 