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Hey, I'm still in Korea. It's an attempt at security and an avoidance of making any drastic changes (like another international relocation) just yet that I chose back in November to stay until next July. In short, it's just easier to stay where I am. Of course, at the time I was feeling incredibly satisfied and fulfilled with my job, my social life, my romantic life, my recreational life, and the state of things in Seoul.
Happiness is a funny thing, too, because once it comes around, it deceives you into believing things are going to look up from now on...until they don't, and you spend some time scrambling or frantic because circumstances are out of your hands. Besides that, I just really enjoy being happy. Who doesn't? Unfortunately, my shortcomings and insecurities include a bit of jealousy, indignance, impatience, and melodrama. Having no control over the momentum of life often leads to flare-ups in some of my less-marketable qualities, and happiness factors tend to drop in those cases.
By December, I had found myself in a sticky social situation, discovered I didn't have the money for any trip during my winter vacation, and felt as though I had nothing to really look forward to. Christmas and the New Year promised nothing more than solitude and sub-freezing temperatures, and life felt grim and lonely once again. Change is inevitable, in beautiful, painful, unpredictable ways, but it comes and that's just fact.
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I decided that if I was going to drop a bunch of money during my week of paid vacation, I was going to put it towards something I could remember clearly. Like a big tattoo. I have been thinking about getting one to essentially commemorate my life in Korea, the phenomenon of change and how it is a beautiful thing, and something that I have especially loved about Seoul. Eventually I settled on ginkgo leaves, which come in many shapes and sizes even on the same tree. They are a brilliant green during the spring and summer, and they gradually gild over in September and October until trees everwhere are a luminous yellow. They have dictated so much of my subconscious feelings about my life here; experiencing seasons in a temperate climate, the reverence for their medicinal and nutritional properties, and seeing the scattered, fallen leaves dry and brown but retaining their classic shape, all during the winter. I see them peeking out of the snowdrifts, occasionally. I think they are lovely, plain and simple. I feel a special connection to ginkgo, and ginkgo is a familiar thing in Korean life.
Five hundred dollars later, I am now tending to the healing of my brand-new, intricate and extremely professional-looking tattoo.
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After my contract is up in July, I plan to fly to Bangkok, Thailand, for the first leg of a two-week trip around the country, before I fly out of Bangkok to Phoenix. By now, obviously, changes this big shouldn't scare me. My world has turned upside-down so many times I can't quite count, and I'm no worse for the wear. In fact, I'd like to say they have been huge growth experiences and that I'm better for having had the challenges of starting over again and again. Little rebirths. This all relies on my faith that God is directing my life and has stretched a massive safety net in case I stumble. So far, so good. Why not view the impending international relocation as yet another renaissance? I certainly won't be the same person when I get back to the States, so I shouldn't imagine that I will find myself back in the same conundrums. For as unappealing as Phoenix seems to me, it still serves as a home base, and always has, and I've never had too much trouble springboarding out of there when the right opportunity arose.
I have been frightened, but I suddenly understand that there's no need for it.
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Additionally, I feel pressure to lose weight and be in good condition to train in taekwondo and receive my black belt before July. This is absolutely within reach, but I no longer feel the liberty to answer only to myself, because now my trainer is keeping tabs on my weight loss. This motivates me but only when I have made progress; otherwise I feel shame for not having the energy or the determination to maintain a healthy diet. I stay quite active, far more than I was for most of my life, but occasionally I injure myself or get sick, and my training intensity suffers. I seem to have lost the foothold on being tidy and having a regular, healthy sleep routine, so I am most often dragging far behind where I should be. Lethargy is my constant foe.
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Belly dancing has been very fun and fulfilling for the past several weeks. Our instructor has been away, traveling around the world, training and performing and advancing her skill. Meanwhile, three girls from our dance troupe are leading different sections of the class. It has been a really wonderful, healthy thing for us to have this time together, doing technique drills and bonding on a totally different level than before. It's very a comfortable and supportive atmosphere. They are such wonderful teachers and their experience, approach and interpretation of the dance has been very eye-opening and empowering. I really needed to learn more technique and work on it, so I feel as though I've caught up somewhat to the other girls who have been doing this for at least a year longer than I have. Very valuable. I'd like to be slimmer for this as well, since I am hung up on insecurities with my belly and stretch marks. All in good time, I suppose.
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Though I've dated a tiny bit while being in Korea, there's certainly no one who has ever measured up to the bar Toby set for me. Since I've been here, too, our friendship has deepened, and we communicate on a different level (FINALLY). We are best friends, and I can always count on him to understand what I am going through and to be encouraging and supportive of me. Our interests are fairly different, but highly compatible, and in terms of humor and music and academic pursuits, he just plain "gets" me. To be fair, I haven't been totally open to the idea of replacing him as the Significant Man in my life, and the few guys I've actually found myself really drawn to seemed to have no interest in me, so the choice has always been easy. Toby wins. And, as usual, I fixate on him, just like I've done for a decade, but the refreshing thing is that he welcomes my attention and I don't feel like a crazy stalker. He's even risen to the occasion of meeting me halfway, in a sense, to stay in touch and make meaningful, loving gestures of affection and friendship.
He is supportive of me being all the way out here, working on myself, making progress he swears he can see daily (even though I am somewhat blind to it), and refuses to impose his own life momentum on my goals...though I don't want anybody but him. So we're in a state of Limbo, I suppose, and may remain that way until something stirs inside of him to pick up and run to a new life, or something stirs inside of me to move along. So far, nothing.
That means, of course, that my little domestic romance did not last long. A nice, attractive guy, yes, but a major lack of compatibility was glaringly obvious the longer we dated. It isn't his fault, but he doesn't do or say the things I want him to, he isn't what I want in a relationship. We're still friends, but in a manner where I am wholly uninterested in him (a few ugly revelations of his immaturity really turned me off romantically), and he still makes attempts to flirt with me. It's not enough to enjoy his good looks, because I find myself frustrated with him more often, and that's probably all it will ever amount to.
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I should, and likely will, start posting blogs again with cheerful descriptions of my most recent adventure or infatuation, with photos to complement. These cold winter months (MUCH colder than weather in which I've ever had to function daily) have slowed me down and made me acutely apathetic. That's the word of the month: Apathy. A-P-A-T-H-Y. It's such a big thing to have to crawl out from under, just like repressing bad memories and pain, because it builds up to such an immense degree and becomes exponentially more difficult to recover from every day that it continues.
Lately, though, I can shave little tasks off the huge pile of things I should do. So it's not going to weigh down on me forever. I just need to practice maintaining it all the time.
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