Plans turned to tears and the passing away of Jimm

   I have been silent on the blog for the most terrible of reasons - My beloved husband and best friend Jimm died on November 6. It was very sudden, with an ambulance being called around 3:30pm and he was gone from me by 6:30pm. I have cried about a zillion tears and this is heartbreaking on so many levels.
   Jimm loved being in Bangkok and we had such fun in the year planning it together. As you might have seen from his busy facebook and instagram entries, each day was a new adventure. I am devastated that he was enjoying this new life so much and yet fate cheated him of fully realizing our dream.
   We had decided to hold off collecting his social security a year for a lousy 17 bucks more a month, and he only got to draw on it for 5 months total. It turns out I am too young to receive any of his for many months. Use that as a cautionary tale of never knowing what the future can bring and treat each day as it may be your last.
   So- could anything be more terrible than losing my partner and friend of over 30 years, being alone in a foreign country and not speaking the language, fighting with Prudential insurance, my home back in Las Vegas rented out for 24 more months? I am thinking, not much more. Thankfully our son Sebastian has been a rock of support even though he was suffering terribly himself.

    Most of my friends and family expected I would return to the states, but I feel like the enormous amount of energy it took to get here would be a betrayal of everything we set out to accomplish. My current plan is to travel EVERYWHERE we had wished to go over 5 years and cram it into 11 months. It won't be anywhere near as fun, I will cry a lot but to waste this opportunity we had grabbed for ourselves would be to throw away a lifetime experience.

   So now this blog will not be a lighthearted cultural trip of all things Southeast Asia, but a more traditional solo travel blog. I hope you will follow along with me and see the moon on the other side of the world.