Something Next to Normal

Real talk, y’all: I have been trying my best to write this blog post for the past four weeks. For twenty seven days now, I’ve attempted to put words on a page, to create something that reflects my life here so far in an interesting and appealing way. I sit down, either on my couch or at the wonderfully expensive restaurant just around the corner (which has free wifi and lattes), and I open my laptop. I pull up the blog, click the handy little “new post” button in the upper right hand corner of the screen, rest my fingers on the keys…and nothing happens. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll start a few sentences, maybe throw in a picture or two, and then almost immediately start doubting myself. Is this too boring? Do people really care? Okay, you’ve spiced it up a bit, but now it’s too much–who are you trying to impress? Just write! 

So I click the “Save Draft” button and close the tab. There are currently more saved drafts in storage than there are published posts.

When I step back and think about it, I realize that a lot of what I’ve been struggling with is the fact that life here in Malaysia is, despite all of my expectations, beginning to feel very…well, normal. Which I didn’t think was possible. At all. How can living thousands of miles away from home, in a country that is the opposite of my own in so many ways, possibly feel normal?

I honestly don’t know. And I’m not exactly sure when this return to normalcy began, either. If I had to guess, I would say that it’s been a gradual process. That, somewhere between wearing a bright green silk shirt to school on Thursdays and making up an on-the-spot cardio routine to Katy Perry’s “Firework” for a bunch of Malaysian teenagers, life just kind of became this normal, not-at-all-bizarre thing to me. I wake up, go to work, come home…and even though most of these every day steps are like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, they have become my routine.

Which is why, I think, writing this blog post has been so difficult for me. For the past four months, I’ve approached updating this blog with a feeling of novelty, like everything I had to say was new and exciting and needed to be heard. And now, as I make my way into month five of this Fulbright journey, that sense of novelty is beginning to wear off just a little bit.

It’s not that my life is actually less exciting than it was before. I’m still figuring out how to be a minor celebrity, both at school and in town. I’m still learning to speak Bahasa Melayu (with a decent amount of success, I might add). I’m still traveling around Southeast Asia, seeing places I’ve always dreamed of seeing. My life is, in so many ways, far from normal–I guess I’m just much better at coping with it all than I was four months ago.

To be honest, if a herd of cows isn’t hanging out in the middle of the road on my way to school in the morning, it’s just not a normal day.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to write this blog post, and that it’s not going to be the most exciting thing to ever hit the internet. We can’t all be Kim K’s rear end, am I right? (Is that reference even still a thing? I’m very much out of the loop over here, y’all.)

The point is, I’m making this post because I want to, and because my life here is still incredible in so many unpredictable ways despite the fact that it’s all becoming a bit routine to me. In the last month, I’ve taken to the streets of Thailand with only a bathing suit and a water gun to help ring in the new year. I’ve been white water rafting down a river in Ipoh (and I didn’t die). I’ve spent the day with my students exploring the Cameron Highlands and eating my weight in strawberries, all because they just wanted to have an adventure with me.

I’m still learning, still experiencing, still living this crazy, beautiful life. And I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

Until next time,

Kyle

P.S. You get 10 bonus points if you caught that Ke$ha reference…and an additional 5 if you don’t hate me for it.