Where to begin? Two and a half years after we last spoke, how to describe everything that's gone in the in-between? What it felt like to stand atop the Himalayas and behold the lights of the world spread out before me like some celestial ceiling of the gods? How it was to encounter a culture as foreign to mine as could be had, only to realize that within it I'd finally found a way of living that made sense to me? The way it shook my soul, after a lifetime of Christianity, to read the sacred text of another faith--the Bhagavad Gita, inimitably titled "The Song of God"--and reach the heart-stopping conclusion that I couldn't deny the truth in it?
It's beyond my abilities, and beyond the indulgence of any readers I may still have after so long a hiatus, to do justice here to that story. But know that India changed me. Know it turned me in ways that can never be turned back. Know that it will hold a sacred place in my heart until the very day I'm lowered into the ground--and, if Krishna is to be believed, perhaps even beyond that. After all, the old adage that "You only live once" holds a bit less lustre if you start to question whether it's really true.
So let's find a way to catch things up that doesn't take 50 pages and a personal testimony.
I'm back, for a brief time, in the United States. But I've decided not to stay. It turns out that low cost of living, social norms built around mutual respect, the ability to hire full-time domestic help, great weather, fucking phenomenal food, and excellent medical care for which you pay next to nothing, will all conspire together to change a person's expectations.
This summer I wrapped up work, had last hurrahs with local friends, said tearful goodbyes to my driver and housekeeper, and boarded a plane for the US thinking, What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I weighed it, you know. Considered sticking around a bit, maybe taking a role in Southern State or even heading back to Alaska. That lasted about five seconds into the vacation I planned for when I first got back here. I don't know if there was any one moment that decided me. Maybe it was checking into the hotel room for which I was paying thousands of dollars, only to find no fridge and no functioning air conditioning. Maybe it was the cafe that didn't carry plastic straws but would sell you a single reusable one for just $6--while requesting a tip, of course. Maybe it was the Airbnb host who charged me a hefty cleaning fee only to then berate me for not cleaning the apartment I paid, again, thousands of dollars to stay in. Maybe it was the first time seeing an American doctor after years of not having to. The condescension and the cost sky high--the quality in the basement.
Not one of these self-satisfied little chodes could hold a candle to the physician who performed surgery on me in Heptanesia, managed to not leave a single scar on my body, and was texting me on WhatsApp the next day to check on how I was doing. All for a tenth the cost of a "more qualified" American doctor. Who, I guarantee you, would've done a worse job.
"You know, BB, you got really good evaluations for the project in India," my boss said to me when I resumed work at the corporate office in July. "We actually have another client contract coming up in Asia next year--"
"Yes."
"...Don't you want to know what country the project is in?"
"Oh, right. Ha ha. Yeah, I probably should ask that."
"Well, we--"
"I mean the thing is, like, I'm going to accept it. But yes, please tell me more."
And that is why in early 2027 I'll be off to another part of the continent that brought me so much happiness these last several years. Not to India, but I suppose one can't win every prize there is to win in life. For about the next six months I'll be working with Stateside accounts during the day and taking language classes at night (as the corporate client I'm going to work with doesn't speak English!), which makes for a full schedule but has the benefit of getting me out a lot faster.
I'll depart mere weeks after my 39th birthday.
Several things are coming with me. A new reverence for Vishnu and ongoing study of dharmic principles, because Krishna really does know what he's talking about and I'm at least kind of Hindu now. A connection to the man who may be my...arranged husband?
Hear me out.
Asphalios and I met in November 2024 and began a six-month courtship that could best be described as pleasant. No fireworks. No butterflies. But a perfectly enjoyable half-year diversion with an educated professional who didn't bother me and whom I did not bother in return. We even took a long weekend to a vineyard. (Indian vineyards kick ass. You should do it.)
By the time the summer of 2025 rolled around I was a year out from returning to the US and neither of us was invested enough in the relationship to consider marriage, so we parted on the most amicable of terms to become the weird exes who say they're going to stay friends but then actually do it.
And that's when Asphalios really started to earn his brownie points.
Kind of hard to put my finger on one moment where I thought, "Oh, wow," but his coming over to my house at Christmas--months after we'd separated--because he didn't want me to spend the holiday by myself definitely felt like an eye-opener. Ditto the fact that I bought him Ravenclaw socks for his birthday (total Potterhead) and he proceeded to wear them every time we saw each other after that. For the record, he reciprocated on my birthday with a pair of Hufflepuff socks that I still putz around the house in.
"Don't take this the wrong way," I told him during our last get-together in May 2026. "But I think of you as an option."
He bobbed his head in the side-to-side way Indians use as a nod.
"No, I think of you as an option as well."
"Wait, what?"
"We have shared goals and interests. It's a logical match."
"I...yeah. Yeah!"
I god-damn love India. In America one falls in love and then gets married, but on the Subcontinent one gets married and then falls in love. An eminently more sensible way of doing things, if you ask me.
Do I love Asphalios now? Well. "Love" is a strong word. I'm fond of him, sure. But twenty years from now, after building a life and raising children and being one half of a partnership that defined how both of us faced the world? I'm sure I would love him then.
And because he's an Indian and I evidently ought to have been, the idea of an arranged marriage doesn't strike either of us as especially odd.
I'll be back in his neck of the woods, relatively speaking, in the summer of 2027, and if we're both single at that point we're going to seriously consider taking up again. Maybe giving one another the ring and the husband we've both dreamt of.
And there is one other stowaway who'll be hitching a ride with me to Scythia.
Bridgette joined my household in what was supposed to be a temporary arrangement in the summer of 2025, and within several weeks was so hilariously obsessed with me that I basically felt compelled into adopting her.
"To be honest, I'm not like 100% about it," I confided to a friend at the time. "But I'm worried this cat is going to have like a nervous breakdown if I don't take her with me. She watches me shower. The way a serial killer would."
An attempt to foster her with my housekeeper went disastrously (lol), and now one mountain of paperwork and many mountains of poop later I have an international kitty who's half baby and half stalker. She's done okay adjusting to the States but is a total snob about the American cat food, which I can't fault her for because it truly does suck ass in comparison.
I don't know where all this ends up. I don't know where I end up. But I know that when I think of Krishna I feel a peace that Christianity never quite managed to bring me. I know Asphalios is a wonderful human being. I know my cat is a gift from God. I know that when I was too sick to get out of bed my housekeeper came across the city on her day off to take care of me and then tried to refuse overtime pay. I know my favorite Starbucks and favorite bookstore both cared for the animals who lived in the alleys adjacent to them. I know my driver raised his brother's children as his own. I know he adored his wife. I know that when he told me he prayed for me, I believed it.
I know I found a different way of existing. I know I'm not going back.
And I know I'm headed somewhere good.
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