I have visited, volunteered, worked, transited through and lived in numerous countries. I have been lost, I have been found, I have been menaced, threatened, and scammed in several countries. I have been loved and in love, I have made friends and met old friends by traveling. Travel—it seems—chose me; I never had a choice.

I discovered new skills, learned new languages, tasted exotic foods, and cooked foreign dishes. I have slept balled up on a 1960’s rusty overnight bus, the one in which a Laotian man hid in the luggage compartment as we smuggled him into Vietnam. I have squatted in the streets of Hanoi to eat bun cha, I have ridden a motorbike along twisty narrow mountain roads in Sapa. I have unwittingly wandered into an opium den asking for rice and meat, and graciously, the den keeper cooked me some food while Vietnamese men languished on cushions with long pipes. I have slept in the same bed as an Indian family, I have sat on a cement floor and eaten Indian thali with my fingers. I have taken a river boat along the Ping River, I have taken a slow boat along the Mekong River. I have fallen asleep on a hard bench on the 2nd story of an open air utility room in Laos. I have woken up to find my friend from Thailand wandering upstairs at that very moment. Coincidence?

I have bought things I needed: soap, repellant, coffee. I have bought things I didn’t need: a silk skirt from Nepal, pashmina scarves from India, silver bracelets from young girls. I have slept in a tent on the highest mountain in Thailand, I have jumped into the Ganges, I have spun prayer wheels at the Dalai Lama’s temple in northern India. I have been protected, I have been blessed. I have bowed before living meditation masters. I have bowed before deceased meditation masters. I have meditated in holy caves, in holy ashrams. I have circumambulated the holiest mountain —Arunachala.

Perhaps this is the true CV, an account of how life grabbed me by the collar and thrust me into foreign lands, shunning the conventional, constantly casting me out into the unknown. I learned that the world would feed me, clothe me, shelter me. I learned that the world would educate me, test me, discipline me, and hold me tight. 

What shall I say at the end?

I emptied the clip and threw the gun.