What's a synonym for marvel?

I have a word document on my desktop entitled “Homeward Bound!” with an itinerary that begins with my departure from Phuket on December 12^th. Three days after the semester ends, I will be leaving Thailand to begin what I am optimistically thinking of as a new adventure for myself, one that will be both a finale to my time here in Thailand and the catalyst for resuming my life back home. My new adventure will be taking me back to Bali (I vowed to go back someday- who knew it would be six months after my first visit!?) and then to Australia, and that's as far as I've booked as of now. Exciting, right? Maybe, what I might be doing is trying to make my leaving here as exciting as possible so that the shock of such a big change is lessened to something more along the lines of just a little zap in the tangled electric cord that is my life (ahhh, metaphors.) As I’ve previously stated, I like change, but it’s definitely difficult for me. Leaving here seems so… definitive. I really can’t think of another word to describe it.

As with all big choices I make in my life, I obsess over what I am letting go of by leaving here. Sometimes it seems like not much at all. Sometimes it seems like I’m wiping out everything. But I know that’s not the case. It’s dramatic to think of it that way though, and yes, I sometimes have a flair for the dramatic. Everything from being abroad, and everything from before being abroad- that can’t possibly be erased. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a clean slate. I remember telling this to a friend I met while here. He had been traveling around the world for a year, and was on his way home, back to the U.S. “When I get back, it will be a fresh start.” I told him there’s no such thing. No do-overs. No fresh start. You either pick up pieces or break them apart. Either way, you hold on to something from the past and move forward. I don’t think a fresh start is what anyone should want- why would you want to do that, when your experiences have made you who you are today? You learn and evolve from your past experiences and adventures. This is how it should be, ideally, anyway. Now that he’s back, he jokes about how he’s regressing. I don’t think that’s possible either.  No going backward. Digressing, yes. Regressing… no. Digression has its pros and cons, I think.

I’m digressing right now, because I should be A) grading, B) writing about how wonderful I found The Land of Northern Thai to be, or C) getting some much needed sleep. But for some reason, I’d rather be writing this, occasionally stopping to stare out my window at the green field with the humped cow grazing and the white egrets that follow it everywhere under the wet, grey sky. Thinking about All of This. It’s…. something else.

Hanging Baskets, Lisu Village, Mae Hong Son Province, The Land of Northern Thai