A few years back, when I started work as an English teacher in Thailand, there wasn't very much to it. It was just a case of working the maximum number of hours and getting paid. The bar was set very low for English teachers, so it didn't matter that my classes were not too effective; that kids learned very little from me.
With the money, came a girlfriend, although the girlfriend was strictly drawn by the money and the hope of more. I didn't realize that at the time and maxed out my working hours. She was Thai, and from a poor community in the North of Thailand. So I didn't hesitate to get her everything she wanted. Unfortunately, this had the wrong effect. What started as generosity became something she expected of me.
I'd never had a committed girlfriend before, at the ripe age of 33. So this time, I'd work to make sure that things didn't fail or fall through the cracks. I doubled down my efforts at work when times got tough. I used the Biblical notion of working 7 years like Jacob did for Rachel. It only lasted 2.
By the second and a half year, she was gone and out of my life, and because I'd poured so much meaning and passion into that job of keeping her, when she left, it was like a hole was ripped into me and I began to eek out parts of myself.
Now I'm back in Thailand. In the same apartment where she and I lived together; doing a similar job, and in fact, this time, I opted to get paid very little. The whole episode was so traumatizing, apparently, that I had to relive it. Is that how trauma works? Or what exactly is happening here?
OR maybe I'm just a giver, and I insist on giving to the wrong people. That could be the case too, although I'm not particularly sure. I'm working very hard now, and I don't want to. I want to make things work the way they're supposed to. I do the wrong thing even when I try to be right.
I get so angry that I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. I'm frustrated sexually, and by birthday just passed with me alone, and there's a girl in Koh Samui who I keep messaging. And no matter how much I love her, she just doesn't budge, and I can't seem to make her love me; and maybe that's a good thing. I don't like to throw people away the way they threw me away, but I don't want to be in love with her.
Still, the heart wants what it wants. There's no changing that.
Ugh. I need a new perspective.
But I keep listening to my Bible and getting nothing. It's like I'm hitting a brick wall all day and every time I try to change that it gets worse.
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