Myanmar Diary｜Goodbyes Are the Norm, Reunions Are the Exception

At Gate 8 of Yangon Airport now. ✈️ 15 minutes until boarding—time to leave Myanmar for the next destination. This trip lasted just 7 short days. ⏳ A final journey squeezed in before work resumes at month's end. When I left back in February, I didn't know if I'd ever return. Travel impulses are strange like that—sudden, unpredictable. 🤷‍♂️ These days, I've collected stories that moved me to tears. 😢 Through them, I glimpsed fragments of lives unlike my own. Nights here left me aching in ways I'd long forgotten. Thank you, S, for being the kind of person who reminds me what depth and magnetism look like. 💫 — I drafted paragraphs, then deleted them. This sentimental version of myself sometimes irritates me. 😤 Yet this melancholy feels familiar— a ghost of emotions I last felt years ago on Dongji Island. 🌊 Gratitude and ambition must coexist. Growing older demands we guard our (original heart) against becoming what we'd despise. (A harder task than it sounds.) Right now? I'm adrift but not lonely. 🚣 Will I see these faces again in 2-3 years? Uncertainty hums louder than hope. — To me, Myanmar is a kaleidoscope of contrasts. 🌈 This visit revealed its hidden facets: Poverty here wears resilience like armor. I met people with nothing who radiated more joy 😊 than I've felt in my "privileged" routines. We're emotional creatures starving for connection— yet my daily life feels sterile by comparison. These encounters forced me to ask: What could I change? — Next time? Who knows. 🤔 Learning of Myanmar's lost potential left me grieving. Yet it also made me kiss the ground of my homeland. (We only miss water when the well runs dry.) 7 days here contained more life than my past year. The lessons will hitchhike home in my luggage. 🧳 Work awaits, but so do dreams— time to march toward them again. May this land heal. May our paths cross again. #MyanmarTravel #Yangon #Wanderlust #TravelFragments #PerspectiveShift