Sometimes I think about how I’ve learned to cope with so little in life, how I’m honestly making it with scraps, stuff people discard without a second thought as meaningless and not worth holding onto. Like interactions with your local baristas. Like the texts with the moms of your students. I am starved for genuine human connections as I walk through my days in Seoul, an expat without a community or solid friendships (yet). I am trying to find joy in the tiniest of conversation, however surface-level and untested it is. Because that’s all I’ve got. And there are times I have to face the terrible reality that even when I put down my roots here and make more lasting relationships that people may not necessarily understand or enjoy being around me because I’m so different, so abrasive, so insufferable. And there come moments like right now when I’m just flooded with affections from a warm text acknowledging my intention as genuine and good. Again, even if it’s only from one coworker, I feel grateful and pleased.

I really care about these kids, I really do. I get annoyed with them of course, but I hope it comes through to the little ones that I think about them when I’m not in class, pondering about some new ways to make the lessons interesting for them.

A squiggly line and smiling face. Scraps or not, I’ll take them. I’ll take all.