I searched for the word to talk about how i've felt after the 'coming home' of the cycling trip. i feel... free. light. like i don't need anyone or anything really. like everything i need to live and to cope, i have within me, within my means.

The word came to me today, in a short bliss when i drove on the highway and the sunlight illuminated the paddy fields, the landscape around me and i thought for a moment that happiness is munching on muruku, those delicious crunchy things loaded in good spices, given by my student, made by the closest thing she had to a mother.

The word was - self-sufficient. That's how i feel. And self-sufficient means, yes, that i earn enough money to physically sustain myself and everything i physically need; but also, that i am emotionally sufficient for myself now, no longer to need emotional attachments or outside admiration to feel worthy. that i also do not need anyone's approval to feel alright. that everything i need to live, to cope, physically, emotionally, spiritually, i have within, and within my means.

That's alright. That's an alright way to be feeling after many years existing on a false sense of helplessness.

its because i have broken and have put myself together. Also, it is why i decided to keep teaching - because in that it pays me, and it gives me a sense of purpose, and in that the relationship with my students gives me a way to feel emotionally and spiritually both fulfilled and needed - it is one good decision that keeps me feeling self-sufficient. because that is what we should be doing anyway, more and more of the things that make us feel alive, feel like ourselves, that keeps building a force that grows and feeds back into itself - self sufficient.