So it goes

I smile at faces who don’t register my existence. I eat alone in hopes of having someone join me, which has not happened since my arrival. I have cried more than I have laughed here in Thailand, and this feeling is different. I think back to my first week of college, my first week living in a retirement community, my first week studying abroad: this is different. Smiles and wonder break through language barriers, but I am finding that pure, mundane company does not. I come home everyday to my beautiful apartment, filled with beautiful things in a beautiful area, and yet everyday I strip off my teaching clothes and try to sleep off the good cry that overwhelms me the moment I know I am alone and safe in the company of absolutely no one.

I have to remind myself that the way I am hurting is temporary. It seems as though Bangkok has swallowed the joy I had for this adventure and digesting whatever hope I had left. This place, this seemingly horrible place, is taking me much longer to adapt to than I was expecting.

My head is rupturing.

I go to work. My shoes don’t fit. I buy a new skirt. I sweat through my new skirt. I manage savage students whose creativity lies elsewhere. I sing in the shower. I cry in my bed. I stare at the ceiling for ungodly amounts of time. I come home everyday and take two hour naps. I don’t sleep at night. I drink coffees everyday to stay awake. I can’t get up. I have homework to grade. I need to workout. I need to acknowledge my family. I need to figure out how to pay my bills. I need to purchase a blanket. I need to make a new lesson plan. I need to figure out how to be happy. But tomorrow is just another school day, yes? So it goes.

I don’t feel as though I can even relate to those who travel and feel homesick. I don’t miss home. I don’t feel as though I belong in Kansas. I love the people there, but I don’t love who I am there.

There are days when I want to hug my students; there are also days I want to shake them and tell them they are the only reasons I am here. Why don’t they care? Why don’t they listen? I’m sorry for yelling. I’m sorry for giving more homework. I’m sorry.

Tell me something magnificent.

A woman stops me to tell me I am headed in the wrong direction as I go out alone on a Saturday night to meet up with some friends. A bus driver gives me a free ride home on a route that is finished for the evening, because for some reason unbeknownst to me, I didn’t realize there wasn’t a single person on the bus before signaling it down and getting on. Two girls direct me to follow them on a bus when I am clearly lost and get me to where I need to go. A woman who speaks absolutely no English knocks on my door to give me her vacuum for my apartment (which could be taken as an insult, but I am counting my stars).

While I long for company, these fleeting moments of interaction and empathy have helped me get by. They help me put on a smile when I am Teacher Kelly. They help me encourage students who want nothing to do with my lesson plans. They help me relax when I have been riding around on a bus for hours aimlessly still wearing Saturday night’s heels. They help me. I can use all the help I can get right now.

So I will embrace this place, with all of its overwhelming qualities and shy, passing moments of beauty. Because tomorrow is just another school day. It is also my birthday.

So it goes.

P.S. Currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, for those of you who understand the reference.