Joohm reap suor - Hello in Khmer!! So this is just an introduction about me and what I'm doing (or not doing) with my life; I'll start writing up posts about my travels later today.
I call myself Naina Maya, I'm from New York and I'm 21 years old. I currently reside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where I'm working as a volunteer with a Women's Rights/Community Development NGO called Banteay Srei. I left home, my family and friends, and my university in pursuit of something more... something different than the conventional life I had previously planned for. In many ways, I was in pain -- struggling to accept myself as being so different from the norm and also to embrace myself for it, instead of rejecting everything and internalizing the stress. I had reached a heavy place, trapped in a dark emotional state. The word does not exist in the English language but rather in Russian: Toska. Of course, Nabokov describes it in the best way:
I had broken, in a way, and was not capable of sorting myself out while still in the environment which had been toxic to me. This was among the most difficult points for me to get through to other people... the wisest of the bunch all said that if I was capable of completely reshaping my life, the location of where it happens does not matter. THIS WAS WRONG, at least for me. I've come further, I have grown up more in just my first three weeks abroad than I have in YEARS back in the States. I'm changing, and every single facet is for the better. Another battle I had to fight was justifying the fact that I intended to do all this without finishing a degree at uni.... I love my family DEARLY, but for them this was damn near unheard of...especially when I had already completed two years at an Ivy League University. My decision was seen as flighty, careless, immature, and irresponsible by some people... My parents and my beautiful sister have been fully supportive of me but I'm not sure they ever really understood why I had to leave, why I had to do this.
The truest reason of why I had to leave, right now, and completely on my own, was because I had to learn to love myself and to have faith in myself, and for me, this just was not possible in New York. And, as eloquently stated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
One thing that I have always loved, ever since I was a little girl, was to travel. To explore, to immerse myself in a different culture and a different place and to just absorb as much of the energy as I could. I love art, music, dance, languages, food, animals, science and good company... and these things are universal, regardless of the fact that they exist in many different shapes and forms. I love the harmony of everything being different but still all unified... it's also very much in the same way in life in it's purest form, without being contorted, distorted, manipulated, and generally misused. The western, the American, the New Yorker mentality and way of life was not working for me and I needed to live something different so I could gain at least a relative perspective on my life and my thoughts and the things that worried me.
I feel healthier, happier, and stronger than I've ever been before, and I have never been more proud of myself. I feel free and at peace here, and my only regret is not doing it sooner. This situation was EXACTLY what I needed to clear my head of all the fog, the pain, the mess that I had created myself.... and now that I have this in my hands, I intend to make the most of it in every way, shape, and form; to take every opportunity I can - if for nothing more than just the experience; to learn from every direction; and to just be the best version of myself that I can be. I am truly living, living not for yesterday and not for tomorrow, but for today. And I've never felt more alive.
I call myself Naina Maya, I'm from New York and I'm 21 years old. I currently reside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where I'm working as a volunteer with a Women's Rights/Community Development NGO called Banteay Srei. I left home, my family and friends, and my university in pursuit of something more... something different than the conventional life I had previously planned for. In many ways, I was in pain -- struggling to accept myself as being so different from the norm and also to embrace myself for it, instead of rejecting everything and internalizing the stress. I had reached a heavy place, trapped in a dark emotional state. The word does not exist in the English language but rather in Russian: Toska. Of course, Nabokov describes it in the best way:
“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”I was not that I did not have a strong support system of family and friends and love back home, because I did, but this was personal for me... this was never about anyone but myself and because of that I chose to internalize it and keep my thoughts and feelings and emotions away from most people I knew. I lacked an outlet, a method of expression to release how much stress and heaviness I carried with me, and it damaged a lot of relationships in my life... but more than any other, it damaged my relationship with myself. Instead of working to heal myself, I pushed myself harder because I felt that it was what I was "supposed" to do (how wrong I was...). I threw myself into whatever I could, a degree I did not know that I wanted, a lifestyle where I kept moving just so I wouldn't have to think about it and actually deal with what I was going through.
I had broken, in a way, and was not capable of sorting myself out while still in the environment which had been toxic to me. This was among the most difficult points for me to get through to other people... the wisest of the bunch all said that if I was capable of completely reshaping my life, the location of where it happens does not matter. THIS WAS WRONG, at least for me. I've come further, I have grown up more in just my first three weeks abroad than I have in YEARS back in the States. I'm changing, and every single facet is for the better. Another battle I had to fight was justifying the fact that I intended to do all this without finishing a degree at uni.... I love my family DEARLY, but for them this was damn near unheard of...especially when I had already completed two years at an Ivy League University. My decision was seen as flighty, careless, immature, and irresponsible by some people... My parents and my beautiful sister have been fully supportive of me but I'm not sure they ever really understood why I had to leave, why I had to do this.
The truest reason of why I had to leave, right now, and completely on my own, was because I had to learn to love myself and to have faith in myself, and for me, this just was not possible in New York. And, as eloquently stated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
One thing that I have always loved, ever since I was a little girl, was to travel. To explore, to immerse myself in a different culture and a different place and to just absorb as much of the energy as I could. I love art, music, dance, languages, food, animals, science and good company... and these things are universal, regardless of the fact that they exist in many different shapes and forms. I love the harmony of everything being different but still all unified... it's also very much in the same way in life in it's purest form, without being contorted, distorted, manipulated, and generally misused. The western, the American, the New Yorker mentality and way of life was not working for me and I needed to live something different so I could gain at least a relative perspective on my life and my thoughts and the things that worried me.
Thus, the universe led me here: to Cambodia.
Cambodia, particularly, because of the resilience of this beautiful country and of it's people.
My first post will be my first thoughts, impressions, and reactions to the Khmer life.
I feel healthier, happier, and stronger than I've ever been before, and I have never been more proud of myself. I feel free and at peace here, and my only regret is not doing it sooner. This situation was EXACTLY what I needed to clear my head of all the fog, the pain, the mess that I had created myself.... and now that I have this in my hands, I intend to make the most of it in every way, shape, and form; to take every opportunity I can - if for nothing more than just the experience; to learn from every direction; and to just be the best version of myself that I can be. I am truly living, living not for yesterday and not for tomorrow, but for today. And I've never felt more alive.
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