How I Got Out of My Comfort Zone and Found Myself in Thailand

How did I get here?  Now of course I am not talking in a literal sense, I know how I got here.  I took a draining 39 hour trip from Minnesota to Chiang Mai on September 24, studied and met some great friends there for a month, spent a miserable three days in Khon Kaen trying and failing to communicate with a school, was given a new placement, boarded a bus without knowing where I was going and ended up in Phayakkaphum Phisai.

That is how I physically got here, but for the last couple days I have been doing a lot of thinking about how I got here.  How I got to this place in my life.  How a girl that suffered her whole life with anxiety disordered managed to bust out of her comfort zone and end up across the world teaching in rural Thailand at Iam Sook school.

How did I get here?  Why am I so lucky?  How did I end up in such a magical place blessed with these amazing experiences and gracious, warm people?  How did I get here?  Each night as I fall asleep these thoughts are racing through my mind.

I honestly have no other answer than an incredible twist of fate mixed with me finally realizing that I don’t need to fear life.  Life has so many amazing opportunities and for so much of my life I have ran away from them with great trepidation and now I am finally embracing it.  That is how I got here.

Each day I have woken up in Phayakkaphum Phisai I wake up full of life.  I feel like I am floating through life on cloud nine.  I constantly find myself smiling for no apparent reason other than the fact that I am here, I finally did it.  I am living the dream that I always dreamt, but never thought was possible for me.  I am here, because I finally let go.  I am here and I will never return to that fearful girl again.  I will never miss another opportunity again.  I am here and I am staying.