My Letter to 2014

Dear 2014,

At the beginning, you've bought me to the height of what I thought to be my happiest only to extinguish that warmth I called happiness. 

You destroyed me. You hurt me. You stole what I once believed to be a precious part of my heart. 

You slapped and kicked me. You led me to the darkest and deepest corners within my soul that I was afraid to visit. 

That was when I saw the dust in these corners. That was when you whispered to me, urging me to claim and love these dirty corners inside me. That was when you encouraged me to re-examine the definition of happiness. 

You taught me that finding peace is what I truly want, not happiness. 

Happiness is fleeting, fickle, and found only in moments I choose to believe in it.

Peace is eternal, visible only when I call upon it and invisible only when I obscure it. But it is there, deep within me, always warm with love and always calm and patient with my leaps and jumps in different directions.

At the end, you were a mother's tight embrace. You were like a blanket that warmed my soul. 

Dear 2014,

You have quite literally changed me. 

I changed my mind about the kind of life I am creating. I changed my mind about the kind of friendship I am seeking out. I changed my mind about the kind of dream I am dreaming. 

Most importantly, I changed my mind about the kind of perspective I wish to adopt about myself. 

You gave me the courage to live out my wildest dream: traveling until I drop. 

You pushed me to do what I never imagined I'd do in that year: growing by leaps, jumps, and even flights. 

You surprised me again and again.

You have so severely tested me only to reveal that I am stronger, far more stronger, than I ever dared to imagine. Only to point out that I am capable to love this deep and to be loved this much. Only to reassure that I am younger in my soul, wiser in my mind, and gentler in my heart than before. 

You toughened my mind and my heart up to soften the edges of my soul. 

You shaped and are shaping me into being more myself than ever, more trusting of myself, and more loving of myself.

Dear 2014,

You shall live on in my memory as one of these intense years. I've learned so much from you. 

At the beginning, the very beginning, I thought that you would be the best year ever.

Then you proved me wrong.

Then I thought that you had to be the worst year ever.

Then you proved me wrong.

Every time I changed my mind about you, you proved me wrong. 

You kept on proving me wrong about so many things that I have to name you The Year I Learned To Let Go. 

What a silly, extraordinary, and memorable year you have been. 

Dear 2014,

Thank you for spending time with me.

Thank you for giving me 365 days to make mistakes, to learn from them, to repeat them, to laugh about them, to make better mistakes, and to love them. 

Thank you for giving me the most agonizing times and the most joyful times.

Thank you for giving me better tools to embrace life, to accept myself, and to love. 

Thank you especially for allowing me to greet 2015 with more joy and less fear for the other 365 days of life around the Sun. 

Dear 2014, dearest The Year I Learned To Let Go, 

At the beginning of you, I was celebrating in Washington, DC, in the room filled with familiar faces. I was happy, wise, and excited then.

At the end of you, I am celebrating in the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam, among new faces. I am happier, wiser, and even more excited now. 

You are the perfect year to put my greatest lesson from you in use.

I am letting you go. 

Good-bye, The Year I Learned To Let Go!

Now, my dears, here are the collection of memories (and thoughts) made toward the end of 2014. Enjoy!

Sometimes life is good. Sometimes life is bad. All in all, life is life, just like a field is a field. It all depends on how you wish to perceive it. 

[village near Kalaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma]

Once in a while, you discover inside yourself a capacity to sail through life like you've always meant to do so. 

[Shan village near Hsipaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma] 

However you should ride life out, it never hurts to have company along to rock it out as well. [Hsipaw, Shan State, Myanmar/Burma]

© Elizabeth A. Steyer*

There is no harm in inventing a new way. After all, there is no harm in doing reverse Photobombing. You take a photo of yourself interrupting the beauty of the elephant ride, and nobody can complain because it is your fuckin' own photo. 

[Bam Xieng Lom village, Luang Prabang, Laos]

Indulge yourself in a way that makes you feel so beloved. You are your greatest love affair of life. 

[mulberry organic farm, Vang Vieng, Laos]

You are the sum of many gifts. Spend them all on life. 

[strawberry farm, Pai, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand]

Every year defines you. Allow everything influence, shake, and mold you. They all have a story in addition to yours. 

[Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand]

Forgive yourself when you fail. Life has many charms, and some of them are too irresistible to ignore. 

[Bam Xieng Lom, Luang Prabang, Laos]

Small, simple pleasures brings relief to the soul that goes through the wildness of life. 

[village near Inle Lake, Shan State Myanmar/Burma]

So many pictures. So many memories. So many days. All overflowing with pleas to tell you stories. Stories inhale and exhale. So many words. So many ideas. So many beginnings.

Many beginnings. Many endings.

Your choice. 

May you all greet 2015 well. 

* That's right. My fuckin' own photo. 

Dead Like Me

"You are Death...and the first one I met during traveling," the Spaniard told Violet at the bus station, where we were waiting for our ride to Kalaw (only to end up in Inle Lake instead . . . #deaftravelerproblems). 

Death. Deaf.

I had to laugh. A very common mistake. However, the way he said it got me thinking . . .

What he said was quite a metaphor. By meeting us two Deaf (aka Death) travelers, his ideas regarding so-called disabled travelers changed. We brought the end, or the death, to his old ideas. 

In a very small way, he was a changed man simply because he had discovered an idea that allowed him to readjust his view of how the world is working. 

We as the Deaf people are quite a paradox within this world, forever representing the humankind's potential for leading a fulfilling, happy life while frequently being perceived as sadly lacking something that is often thought as being fundamental to our identity. 

We are constantly surprising the world simply by breathing. Many travelers we encountered on the road were in awe of us, calling us "brave" for daring to venture out to see the world, even though they were doing the very same thing.* 

I wonder, maybe by calling us brave, they do not mean we are brave in spite of our deafness. Rather, from their perspective, we are brave for walking among people who could not understand us, among people who do not always communicate with us, and among people who are many worlds away from us.

They are amazed that we are willing to take the risk of placing our trust in strangers' hands. They are watching us, perhaps incredulous by the way we converse in this beautiful, strange language that nearly nobody around us speaks, nod, and then turn to strangers, conceding to their insistence to help us. 

They are gasping over our willingness to go with the flow without totally understanding what is going on. They are shouting out in surprise over our horror tales of a mission gone awry, of a request gone misinterpreted, and of a plea gone ignored. Perhaps they are imagining how the hell can we remain so willing, so trusting, so excited about our journey in spite of everything. 

Ah, courage, they thought, it must take courage. It has to be courage. We are brave enough to travel. We travel because we are brave. 

Maybe they do not know that it does not take courage for us to travel. We are as brave as they are to go far away from our country, to replace comfort with the unknown, and to always feel so small in this big, big world. 

They perhaps do not realize that, to us, placing trust in strangers' hands isn't risky for us. We have been spending all our lives doing this kind of thing: allowing strangers to do things for us simply because it is easier, faster and more convenient.

Being Deaf in this world has trained us since birth or early age to determine how much we should allow a stranger to help us. We are rather gifted in that way: we are able to distinguish the difference between total takeover and simple trust. 

We are also very conscious by how we are perceived by the "non-disabled." They are pitying us. Their hearts bleed for our so-called misfortune. They want to help.

And, as bad as it sounds, we are taking advantage of their pity. 

Our smiles widen as they promise to guide us straight to our seats, knowing it'd mean skipping the hassle of communication breakdown, confusion about how things are managed, and sometimes even security screening that other travelers have to put up with.

Our eyes flutter as we look down to calm down our desire to laugh out aloud as they run around, pointing at us and demanding that we are to be helped to our next destination. That would mean less money to lose, less time to waste, and easier traveling for us. 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we get disability discounts and sometimes even free admission into famous places? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we gesture better and understand others' body language faster than the average individual? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we receive more protection, support, and kindness from foreign strangers than other tourists would normally receive? 

Doesn't the world know that because we are Deaf, we are experiencing the world at a level so utterly foreign to others that our apparent bravery probably stems from our comfort with the idea of being a foreigner since we are already foreigners in this world? 

It is very possible that we don't travel because we are brave. We travel simply because we want to, just like many other travelers. 

We are smart. We are adaptable. We are experienced. We know how to adjust to different situations. We know how to get along with hearing people. We know how to live. 

Hmm.

Wait a second. 

I am wandering away from the entire point behind this post. There is one reason why I am saying all this stuff . . . 

To the woman in Bangkok who advised us against traveling in Myanmar/Burma, implying that our deafness will probably fuck things up and we will turn up dead somehow: 

Hello. 

Look at us. 

We've made it.

We are not dead. 

We are Deaf. 

*The late comedian and disability rights advocate, Stella Young, coined a fantastic term: "inspiration porn." This term refers to the "non-disabled" people's inclination to view the disabled as the source of inspiration, failing to recognize that the disabled is not here to inspire the world and that like the non-disabled, they simply live their lives out. "Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you know about it does," Young said during one of her presentations.