When I returned to Ban Phaeng six weeks ago to start my second semester of teaching, I had been on the move for two solid months. I shared my pretty boat rides and my tasty cuisines (shout out to you, Vietnam) and my posed beach shots. It was easy to distill my time into snapshots composed of the perfect percentage of saturation layered upon contrast, and to validate my trip by how many people reacted.

Throughout those weeks of playing American tourist abroad, though, I yearned for the reality of the life I had created in Thailand. I could not have asked for better travel companions along the way, but I missed the authenticity of my daily interactions in Ban Phaeng, which I felt I had traded for glossed-over representations of life. One of the strangest parts about being away from Ban Phaeng was the realization I had that growing older and moving around – and especially, especially the combination of the two – broadens the spheres of influence of life. To my friends and family in the U.S. with whom I typically planned weekly calls, I said Catch you in 2 months! whereas calls with my Ban Phaeng friends became the norm during my time away. I arrived in Thailand in October, knowing no one. I left Thailand in April, heartbroken to say goodbye for even two short months.

After experiencing Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Bali, and new parts of Thailand with friends from high school, college, grad school, and WorldTeach, I was out of money, out of energy, and disturbingly (especially to me) out of enthusiasm.

Deep appreciations for life and for adventure are two of the qualities I hold most dear in other people and in myself. When I returned to Ban Phaeng after a stint in the hospital and some physical and emotional wear-and-tear, the zest that propelled me through my first 8 months in Thailand seemed suddenly depleted. I was coming down from a travel high so intense that I desperately yearned for my bed in Madison as the only possible place of respite. What’s more, I was coming back to a second semester that was going to be exactly the same as its precedent. There would be no new people to meet, no new cultural differences to conquer, no new discomforts to overcome. This was it: I was… comfortable. As someone who has moved to a new city or country six times in the past seven years, and categorized years by three separate, four-month internship gigs, the stagnancy was paralyzing.

The haughtiness of my position struck me deeply when all of the teachers went to visit Mom Toom in the hospital. She was in a bicycle accident – a hill too rocky and steep, the force of her body weight against her spine too strong. She was instantly paralyzed, and while this news alone sickened me for days, seeing her in person completely undermined the grasp I felt I had on the world. Busloads of teachers went to visit her daily, and the beauty of that was not lost on me; but, as we stood around her bed, shoes off and face masks on, as is the Thai-hospital-tradition, my eyes brimmed with tears so insuppressible that I was forced to leave the room (as is the Thai-hospital-tradition). I’m no stranger to hospitals, but I don’t foresee myself ever becoming familiar with the rapidity in which and unfairness with which life can change for the worse.

Mom Toom threw a welcome party for me when I first arrived in October. She threw me a birthday party in February. She hugged me goodbye before I began traveling in April… and in May, she was in a hospital bed where she will continue to stay for an indefinite amount of time. I felt a lot of bleakness during this experience – a lot of conflicting ache for my family and the comforts of my home in conjunction with a desire for more newness, more stimulation, more anything to magnetize my attention away from boredom and sadness.

I stopped writing because it felt like privileged whining (which believe me, I did plenty of, vocally, to my friends). I started drinking. A lot. I started forcing myself into drama that I would have otherwise avoided because it was more interesting than the nothingness that was dictating small-town life. I stopped feeling happy. Do I sound immature? Do I sound as if I digressed? Well you’re right, I have been, and I did.

I think that giving myself two months to sink into the oblivion of travel and the adrenaline of new friends every few weeks (was amazing, don’t think I’m saying it wasn’t, all of my lovely travel companions) was detrimental to my mission here in Thailand. The question with which I’ve been wrestling myself since October – how much impact can I truly have – is not going to be answered by my newly jaded attitude.

No, nothing here is “new” anymore. At what point did I decide that was the adjective in my life that matters most? Something that has taken prominence in my mind lately is the concept of self-worth. It’s something that came to me artificially during my travels as I accumulated passing friends and countries off my bucket list and positive feedback on my photos. It’s something that has come to me permanently from living in Ban Phaeng.

With the beginning of rainy season has come a considerable amount of morning storms. Without fail, someone reaches out to me before 8am to see if I need a ride to school. What’s on my mind at 7am is how I’m possibly going to get out of bed and make it in on time. What’s on Thai minds is who might need help, and how can they provide it. When my computer broke (ok, I spilled nail polish remover all over it…) a friend took it to Bangkok to have it fixed, and lent me his spare computer to use in the meantime. When I stopped by a teacher’s office and mentioned that mango was my favorite fruit, she gave me the entire mango that she had. When I told Boom about a time that I was particularly sad, she invited me for a sleepover and cooked me the brunch that I had been missing.

Recently, I was sick and was taken to the clinic. Pi Moor paid for my medications, and when I protested, she told me, “Don’t worry, you’re my sister.” Everyone jokes that they will come visit me in the U.S. for my wedding. It’s a cute concept. Noiz asked if when all of the professional family photos are done, they could take a Ban Phaeng family photo with my husband and me. That’s when the concept became deeply touching. The people in this town have granted me an unconditional love for which I’m not entirely convinced I deserve, and it is a life lesson that I hope to both internalize and externalize eternally.

In this past week of having a sore throat, I cheated with my classes and showed them movies instead of devising lesson plans. For my youngest kids, I landed on Ella Enchanted, and for the oldest, Ever After. My students were enthralled, and so I expanded the lesson into completing comprehension worksheets, reading more fairy tales, and writing and discussing their own. It ended up being my best week of teaching yet, and with it came the magical little lesson for me that newness and excitement can be created, if you’ll open yourself to it.

I only have 100 days left in Thailand. Only 100 days to contribute to a community that has contributed to me in ways that I believe will only have increasing significance as my life unfolds. I hope to use those 100 days to make the impact that I came here to make, to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented, to immerse myself in my friendships that are invaluable, and to stop being a farang – preoccupied by travel and excitement and Western comforts – instead, satisfied with the warm, loving embrace in which I am situated.