Finding My Rhythm: The Real Talk About Balancing Work and Studies as an International Student

The silence of a machine that usually does the work for us, now waiting for a manual solution.

This morning, I woke up to a mountain of laundry. Baby clothes. School uniforms. My wife’s sweater. My shirts (the ones I wear to Dutch class). The pile sat in the corner of our small apartment like a quiet accusation. 

I loaded the washing machine and pressed the button. Nothing.

I pressed again. Still nothing. I unplugged it, plugged it back in. Nothing. The machine just sat there, silent, dead, its little lights dark. No spin. No water. No mercy.

I stood in front of it for a full minute, staring. Then I laughed not because it was funny. What else can you do when life throws another small problem at you and you are already tired?

My wife came into the kitchen. “What happened?”

“Washing machine,” I said. “Finished.”

She looked at the pile. Looked at me. Looked at the baby sleeping in the other room. “We have almost nothing clean for him tomorrow.”

The baby goes through clothes so fast. A feed, a spit-up, a small leak from the diaper - everything is dirty again. The last clean onesie was on his body. The last sleepsuit was in the pile, waiting to be washed. Tomorrow morning, if the machine did not work, he would have nothing to wear.

I nodded. I already knew.

Looking for a Laundromat

I pulled out my phone and searched: “laundry near me.” A place appeared, fifteen minutes on foot. Not too far. I could manage. I would carry the clothes, find the place, wash them, and come back. Simple.

I packed everything into two large bags. The baby was sleeping. My wife said she would manage. I put on my jacket, grabbed the bags, and walked out into the grey morning in Brugge.

The grey beauty of a morning in Brugge - a view I would have missed if my day had gone according to plan.

The walk was quiet. The cobblestones were wet. I passed the canal, the bridge, the small shops that were not yet open. Fifteen minutes. Enough time to think. 

I thought about my mother. How she used to wash our clothes in the river near our village. Every morning, before the sun got too hot. She would kneel on the stones, beat the clothes against the rocks, rinse them in the cold water. No machine. No bottled detergent. Just her hands and the river and the sun to dry everything by afternoon.

I never heard her complain. Not once. I never heard her say “I am tired of washing clothes.” She just did it. Every day. Because there was no other way.

I realized how soft my life has become. A machine that washes for me. Warm water at the turn of a knob. Detergent that comes in a bottle. And still, when the machine breaks, I feel like the world has stopped.

The Laundromat That Would Not Take My Card

I found the place. A small shop, nothing fancy. Washing machines lined against the wall, dryers humming. A woman behind the counter looked up when I walked in.

“Goedemorgen,” I said.

She smiled. I explained in my broken Dutch that my machine was broken, I needed to wash, I had two bags. She understood. She pointed to the machines, showed me how much they cost.

I reached for my bank card.

She shook her head. “Alleen contant.” Only cash.

My heart sank.

I had no cash. Not a single euro in my pocket. I never carry cash anymore. At least, I don’t. Everything is card. The supermarket, the bakery, the school - everyone takes card. I have not held a coin in months.

I stood there with two bags of laundry at my feet, feeling slightly stupid.

“Waar kan ik geld opnemen?” I asked.

She pointed down the street. “Tien minuten lopen.”

I looked at the bags. I could not carry them to the ATM and back. I would have to leave them here, walk to the ATM, get cash, walk back, and then wash. Simple. Just extra time. Just extra steps.

Small pieces of paper and metal that remind us our digital world still has physical roots.

But something about it frustrated me more than it should. The machine breaking. The no-card policy. The walking back and forth. The pile of laundry waiting at home. The baby who needed clean clothes by tomorrow. All of it, piled on top of each other, pressing down on a day that had just begun.

The ATM on the Corner

I left the bags at the laundromat and walked to find the ATM.

Ten minutes, she said. I walked. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. No ATM. I turned around, walked back, asked again. She pointed again, more clearly this time. I walked again. Finally, I found it on a corner, between a bike shop and a closed café. Just a normal ATM on a normal street corner. But somehow, I had missed it twice.

I took out cash. Twenty euros. More than I needed. But I did not want to come back again.

I walked back to the laundromat. Fifteen more minutes. By now, my shoulders ached from the bags. My feet were wet from the cobblestones. My mood was somewhere between frustration and exhaustion.

I paid the woman. I loaded the machines. I sat on a plastic chair and waited.

Forty-five minutes for the wash. Another forty-five for the dry. Almost two hours in that small shop, watching clothes spin, listening to the hum of machines.

The Lesson in the Waiting

At first, I was angry. At the machine for breaking. At the laundromat for not taking card. At myself for not having cash. At the world for making everything complicated.

But as I sat there, the anger softened. The hum of the machines became almost peaceful. The woman behind the counter offered me a cup of coffee. I took it. We talked a little about the weather, about my baby, about her grandchildren. Her Dutch was simple, my Dutch was worse, but we understood each other.

And then I noticed something. While I was sitting there, I used my phone. I connected to the WiFi, first thing, without thinking. It is habit. Without internet, it is difficult to spend time. If there was no WiFi, I would have put on music or played a simple game. Anything to avoid just sitting. I checked messages. I scrolled a little. I looked at the news from Nepal. The woman offered me coffee, and I put my phone down for a few minutes to talk to her. But then I picked it up again. That is the truth. That is how dependent I have become.

Watching the cycle of the day move slowly, one rotation at a time.

I thought about how dependent I have become on digital things. On cards. On phones. On machines that work with a button. When they work, I do not notice them. When they break, I feel lost.

I thought about how I spend my days. Checking notifications. Scrolling through news from far away. Watching videos of things that do not matter. I know what is happening in America, in Ukraine, in Japan. I know what my cousin in Australia ate for breakfast. I know the weather in Kathmandu. 

But do I know who moved into the apartment upstairs? Do I know the name of the woman who runs the corner shop? Do I know if my neighbour is sick or needs help?

No. I do not.

I live in a virtual world. A world where I am connected to everyone and everything, except the people who are actually near me. My phone tells me about wars and elections and celebrity gossip. But it does not tell me that my wife is tired. That my son wants to play. That the woman at the laundromat has grandchildren she misses.

We know everything about everywhere. And nothing about here.

A moment of warmth and sunlight in a morning of heavy bags and wet cobblestones.

What This Day Taught Me

My mother never had a phone. She never had the internet. She never knew what was happening in the next village, let alone the next country. But she knew everything that mattered. She knew when the goat was sick. She knew when the neighbour needed help. She knew when my father was tired before he said a word.

She lived in the real world. Not the virtual one.

I am not saying we should throw away our phones. I am not saying technology is bad. I use it every day. I learn Dutch with it. I call my father with it. I write these blogs with it.

But sitting in that laundromat, watching my clothes spin, I realized something: I have forgotten how to be present. I have forgotten how to sit in silence. I have forgotten how to notice the small things, the hum of a machine, the kindness of a stranger, the weight of a laundry bag on my shoulder.

The broken washing machine was not a disaster. It was a gift. It forced me to leave my apartment. To walk. To carry. To wait. To talk to someone face to face.

I realized I had stopped carrying cash. Not because I am modern. Because I got lazy. I let the card do the work. I forgot that not everyone takes card. I forgot that coins still exist, that small shops still need them, that the world is not as digital as my phone makes it seem.

Walking fifteen minutes with two bags of laundry was not the end of the world. It was just walking. My mother walked to the river every day. I could walk to a laundromat once.

Waiting was not wasted time, even though I spent most of it on my phone. At least I was aware of it. At least I noticed my own habit. That is the first step.

Small problems feel big when you are already tired. But they are still small. The machine broke. I fixed it by going to a laundromat. The laundromat did not take card. I found an ATM. The ATM was far. I walked. None of it was a disaster. It was just life.

More than anything, I was reminded that I am lucky. Lucky to have a machine that usually works. Lucky to have a laundromat fifteen minutes away. Lucky to have cash to take out. Lucky to have clean clothes at the end of the day. My mother did not have these things. She had the river and the rocks and her hands. And she never complained.

If You Are Reading This

Maybe you have had a day like this too. A small problem that felt bigger than it really was. A moment where everything seemed unnecessarily difficult.

A broken appliance. A missing ATM. A shop that only takes coins. A long walk with heavy bags.

These moments are not disasters. They are just the texture of a real life. They remind us that we are not as independent as we think. That technology is a gift, not a right. That the old ways still have value. That carrying cash is not a bad idea.

And they remind us to look up. To look around. To know our neighbours. To talk to the woman behind the counter. To notice the world that is actually in front of us, not just the one inside our screens.

We know so much about what is far. Do we know enough about what is near?

A Request

I want to hear from you.

​When was the last time a small "disaster" forced you to put down your phone and actually see the world right in front of you?

Share in the comments below. Your story might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.

Because we are, all in this together. All dependent on machines that break. All learning, slowly, that small struggles are not disasters. That a broken washing machine is just a broken washing machine. Not the end of the world.

And all trying to remember that the real world is not inside our phones. It is outside. On the wet cobblestones. In the laundromat. In the hands of a woman offering coffee. 

Closing

I came home with two bags of clean, dry laundry. The apartment smelled like soap and warmth. My wife smiled. The baby had clean clothes for tomorrow. The pile in the corner was gone.

I sat down with my tea. The washing machine was still dead. I would have to call someone to fix it, or buy a new one, or figure something else out. But for now, the clothes were clean. The day was not wasted. And I had learned something.

Not every problem needs a digital solution.
Not every struggle is a failure.
Sometimes, the old way works just fine.
And sometimes, the small inconveniences are the ones that teach us the most.

Now go hug your washing machine. And maybe put a little cash in your wallet, just in case.

But also, go outside. Look around. Notice who is near you. Because the world is not only in your screen. It is right there, on the corner, waiting for you to see it.

With love,
-Bitty

🙏❤️

Life is not found behind a screen. It is found in the struggle.