Thailand: Everything I Didn’t Know I Needed
November 2022
An unexpected journey through dance, cOURAGE, and letting go
I went to Thailand on a whim.
A friend I had recently reconnected with through dance was living there and had invited me to visit. I was going through a period of change in my life, and something in me just said: Go.
So I went.
It became the trip of a lifetime. Everything I didn’t know I needed.
When I walked into the hotel I had booked in Bangkok, I saw a poster for the Salsa Bangkok Fiesta, which was happening the weekend I was there. Of all the hotels I could have chosen, halfway around the world, I had somehow landed in one filled with dancers.
I bought a pass on the spot. At the time, I had just recently found my way back to dance after pregnancy, early motherhood, and then Covid. Dance had become a big part of my life again—but I was still carrying a lot of insecurities with me and I could not bring myself to ask strangers to dance. I could barely bring myself to ask my dance friends back home to dance.
But on the first night, there was one dancer I couldn’t stop watching. He had an energy that made every dance look effortless. I told myself: before the night was over, I was going to ask him to dance. It took me the entire night to work up the courage. But I did. I don’t remember the song. I don’t even remember much about the dance itself. What I remember is asking.
A few days later was my birthday. And that year, Loy Krathong happened to fall on my birthday. That evening, as we travelled to Koh Lanta Old Town for the festival, my friend explained the meaning behind releasing a krathong into the water: a symbol of letting go of what you no longer want to carry forward.
There I was, on my 35th birthday, halfway around the world, at a moment in my life when I deeply needed to let go of something I had been carrying. At a festival built around just that.
I picked out my krathong: a beautiful orange bird of paradise rising dramatically from a bed of white flower petals. Among all the delicate arrangements, this one looked like it was on fire. I knew this one was mine. I carried it with both hands throughout the evening and then down the long pier. As I stood by the water, I silently said goodbye to a chapter of my life, thanked it for what it had given me, and then let it go. As I watched my krathong float away, I instantly felt lighter.
We wandered through the square and eventually found ourselves at a little craft beer bar surrounded by greenery and glowing red lanterns. I sat with an old friend and a new one, drinking beer in the lingering heat of the evening, feeling an incredible sense of peace.
Later that night, a familiar song came on. So we did what dancers do when a good song comes on. We danced. And somewhere in that dance, I felt my heart open. And I knew I was going to be okay.
Thailand wasn’t a trip I had carefully planned or dreamed about for years. It was an unexpected invitation I said yes to at exactly the right moment.
I went because of a friendship that had been rekindled through dance. I accidentally stumbled into a salsa festival. And somewhere along the way, I learned how to choose courage. The courage to ask a stranger to dance. The courage to let go of the past. And the courage to embrace a future full of unknowns.
I came home different.
