When I was a child I had to go to Malaysia often to visit relatives. I don't remember doing much, just eating noodles and staying silent. 

I remember sitting in a black car for hours at a time watching trees flash by. 

I remember looking at endless rows of palm trees thinking I could maybe escape somewhere, and that looked as good a place as any. I spent the hours dreaming of how I'd survive there, alone, finding my own food and water. I dreamed of never having to go back home. I dreamed of being free. 

It was the smoke of those embers that sent me backpacking across europe and australia alone in med school. I had some adventures; I did eventually learn that where I go doesn't change who I am, though I had to acknowledge that my experiences broadened my world. 

I still think about those dreams. Between 'adulting' and under the occasional gray haze of tiredness shimmering at the corners of my eyes. Between conversations and reading, trying to learn something new. Between fighting for my future. Between my regrets and sleepless nights. 

Between all the things that I am fighting for, sometimes without clearly knowing why myself, I remember what it was to be eight, and extremely small, staring out the car window wishing I could disappear into the woods and never come back.