Remember exactly one week ago, when I was so confident and smug that I had bypassed the dreaded three-month culture shock wall? Today put me in my place. To be fair – both to me and to Ban Phaeng – in the 13 weeks I’ve been here, only two days have stood out as particularly agonizing (that’s 2% of the time).

Today’s meltdown taught me the valuable lesson that – at least for me, and at least in terms of living abroad – there is such a thing as being too flexible. I have made being and having fun my main objectives in Thailand. I accept every invitation I receive, because I want to be active in the community, I want to savor every moment of my short foray into this new culture, and I genuinely want to spend time with the people here whom I most definitely love. In all of this acceptance, though, I rarely – if ever – voice concerns or doubts or needs or feelings. Let me backtrack.

Last week, when I had a lengthy lunch at Teacher Ole’s house, her lovely, well-spoken 11-year-old was chatting with me in excellent English. “You must be a very strong girl,” she said to me. I laughed and asked her what she meant. She replied that I live so far away from home, and that she could never manage being separated from her family for that long. Bizarrely, her remark was the first time anyone here had acknowledged my life before Thailand. It was a sweet thing to say but more than that, it made me think about the version of myself before moving here and the version of myself that lives in Ban Phaeng, and whether or not those two people are reconcilable.

The following week was exhausting. I offered to aid the senior class with ONET test preparation (their college entrance exams, conducted in English), so when I was asked if I would add four new classes to my already-full schedule, I said yes. During the week, I was also invited to lunch and to dinner every day, and for every meal, I obliged. Yes, I recognize that I’m spoiled here, but even on the days when I needed my lunch break to prepare for classes or the evening to catch up on home-time and sleep, I could never bring myself to refuse these kind offers. Alone time became an obsolete concept for me. At the end of the week, Teacher Teung asked me to join her as she visited the parents of her students who had been misbehaving. My presence in these situations was rather preposterous – I think the parents were distracted from their child’s truancy due to having a random farang in their house – but she wanted me to go, and I did not want to disappoint her.

At one of these dinners, I met Teacher Ray for the first time. We hadn’t spoken alone and I was not sure of our ability to communicate. When Teacher Teung briefly left the table, the first thing he asked me was, “Are you homesick?” I couldn’t give him a clear answer. I love Ban Phaeng, but I love home, too. Do I have to inhabit both worlds simultaneously? Live and love in one place but miss the other? If I’m not homesick, is that a betrayal of everyone I love who is not here? If I am homesick, does it mean I haven’t acclimated to Thailand? I started wrestling with this dissonance.

When Teung returned to the table, she asked me if I video call my mom every day. I told her that, given the 13-hour time difference, that was impossible. She was floored. She had never considered that I was that far from home. The concept my life before Thailand seemed to emerge for her for the first time, which drew my own attention to it as well. There’s the Thai teachers’ conception of me – farang noi – “little foreigner” which they discuss daily as they teach me new phrases and braid my hair. I often let that replace my own self-perception, instead of adapting it to my sense of self. This, I think, is somewhat detrimental.

My appearance is also a fair discussion topic for everyone, at any point in time. When people stop me in the street to tell me I’m beautiful, I’m wordlessly flattered. My favorite comment came from some of my 8^th grade girls – “Teacher, you look like a fairy tale character.” The day that a teacher asked me what I ate over the weekend, because I look like I’m getting fat, left me speechless for the opposite reason. On a particularly hot day where I felt sweaty and self-conscious, a teacher asked me why I failed to do my makeup as prettily as the previous day. On a day when I forgot my lipstick, I was asked why I don’t care about the appearance of my thin lips. Fang, the Chinese teacher here who is experiencing this culture newly like I am, has been asked why she has such bad acne. “Why do you have those pimples?” someone asks her almost daily. Sometimes, the teachers will feel our legs, to confirm and discuss how recently we have shaved. Once, as I was crossing the school courtyard, several of my sweet female teachers shouted to me from their office that I was looking especially “sexy,” which my boy students then echoed. Another time, during morning assembly, the male gym teacher – over the hoards of students – yelled out to me that I looked skinny that day. Teacher Ole casually told me that she and this same gym teacher had regular conversations about how I was getting prettier since coming here. All of this, by Thai standards, is unremarkable.

All of this, by my standards, is very new and highly uncomfortable. I feel a bit like a doll – which I love when the teachers talk about my “fair doll complexion,” but struggle with when they touch, adjust, and discuss me whenever they feel like it. I was so set on adapting to Thai culture and accepting whatever new norms came my way, that I dulled my reactions to these kinds of incidents. The Thai way is to not concern oneself with body talk; but, for me, these diurnal debates about my appearance have challenged my ability to speak up for myself. If someone’s comment about my makeup makes me feel insecure, then I don’t have to override 24 years of thinking this kind of comment is impolite, just to fit in to Thai culture. I can wallow. I can be mad. I can be understanding of the cultural differences, but I don’t have to extinguish my own feelings in the process.

This all brings me to today. On Monday, there was a teacher conference and teacher party for Thailand’s National Teachers’ Day. On Tuesday, I found out that Wednesday’s classes were cancelled for another teacher meeting. This one, I did not have to attend. Late Tuesday night, I received a phone call that I did, actually, have to attend (the continuous changing of plans was a bit much for me, this time around). This Wednesday meeting was boring. We sat – in hot, black work clothes – for 8 hours listening to a speaker. The fact that I could not understand him did not create any sort of wedge between me and the other teachers: they were all on their phones the entire time. No one seemed to pay attention to anything. The whole day felt like wasted hours, which is probably my least favorite of things.

After the meetings, teachers were mingling, and my well-meaning friends paraded me around too much for my liking. I was yanked into photos with anyone who wanted proof of “the farang.” I was physically positioned to meet important people. At one point, I said I wanted to stay where I was, and a teacher held my wrists and pushed me to speak further with another school’s director. Do I sound passive? I felt passive. I was hot, I was tired, I was bored, and I felt like a prop that everyone could pass around and adjust as they wanted. It was a low point for me.

When we finally – finally – were finished with the business and were on our way home, my car pulled over to a restaurant for dinner. We had consumed an enormous lunch just 2 hours before, and I had no interest in eating. I was aware that if I refused to eat, I would be deemed impolite. I was also aware that if I overstuffed myself, I would be told to watch my weight. I didn’t end up making a choice about how to handle the situation – I started publically bawling instead.

I wanted to be alone. I wanted to pout. I wanted to stay quiet, not have someone demand that I speak. I wanted to sit, not have someone pull me into standing. I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat, not when someone told me it was time. I wanted agency. I wanted to feel like me, not who my friends here suppose I should be.

Here’s the thing: the generosity here is incredible. In so, so many ways, I want to adapt to Thai culture. I feel humbled to have been accepted into this village at all, let alone with such a warm, loving, attentive embrace. I love the classic Thai teacher hair clips, so Teacher Boom surprised me with one. During meetings today, I was scratching some bug bites, and Teacher Dome immediately started rubbing an anti-itch salve on my arm. I have countless stories of the people here intuiting my needs and tending to them without me doing or saying anything.

The fact that I was so massively unhappy left me with the even worse feeling of guilt. How could I be so ungrateful to people who have never done anything wrong, and who have actually done more things right than I could have ever imagined? Ultimately, I know that the people here are trying only to drown me in love – and when I feel as if I can’t breathe, I know that they would be happy to hear about my culture’s differences and adjust to me, when I need it. So, here’s to the coming days, working on balancing adaptation with self-care, and the ever-evolving thrills and challenges of living abroad.