Visited by three spirits.......
Understatements of the century shall include but are not limited to the following:
1) Things have been busy.
2) I’ve been thinking…….
3) Wait, wait now…..I’m confused.
4) Red wine is a good thing.
5) I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world.
Life post-Korea is nothing that I thought it would be, could be, should be. It is more and less at the exact same time. It is more confusing then I thought it would be, full of strange contradictions that leave me breathless at times. There are moments I downright long for Asia and its mixture of reliable frustration and insanity. There are moments I count my lucky stars that I made it home when I did and knew that the time had come to say goodbye. And then there are the moments that I feel gobsmaked by the overwhelming pull I feel in both directions. Travel is a potent drug, and the realization, nay, the knowledge that a change, an adventure, an escape is as simple as a plane ticket away can be an intoxicating inclination. Mucking your way through a snowstorm at 7am can make the recollection of those beaches in Thailand downright painful. Feeling as though you are drowning can make you long for the days when you thought that treading water was the worst thing in the world. Or vice versa for that matter.
It’s one of life cruel ironies that hindsight is always 20/20 and foresight can be like trying to see through a brick wall by slamming your face through it. It’s the present that can, at times, seem the biggest mystery, to me anyway. The reality of not being able to see the bigger picture, the reasons why things seem to unfold the way they do. It’s fucking frustrating and I don’t like it.
The idea of being present is a new one to me. Revolutionary one might say. The simple concept of neither examining the past to ensure you’ve garnered all the life lessons you can out of past experiences, nor craning forward into the next phase in your life, squinting into the sun as you try to single-handedly catch all those curve balls that are racing towards your stupid blonde head. But maybe, just maybe, stopping to take a look around at what you’ve got going on in the here and now. Rolling up your sleeves and digging into what you’re doing now. Today. Dealing with the mistakes you make as you make them and trying not to beat yourself up for them…always forward….and onward.
Korea gave me, among other things, a chance to stop and examine what I wanted my future to look like, to be. I kept waiting, longing for that “future” to start, sometimes hating where I was at that moment, so intent was I on where I thought I wanted to be. And now that I’m here, in this “future” I so wanted, I find myself reexamining my time in Korea.
Never present.
A problem.
There are things I miss, people I miss.
There are things in my life that frustrate me, anger me, make me want to cry.
There are questions I have no answers to and places that I want to go to but am unsure as to the how. The when. The why.
These are three truths that were present in my life pre-Korea, during Korea and now, post-Korea.
So what?
What else has been present this whole time?
What, in my sweet, sweet life, is unique to now?
And, perhaps the most significant question of all…..
How can I incorporate massive amount of red wine into each and every occasion that falls into either of those categories?!?
1) Things have been busy.
2) I’ve been thinking…….
3) Wait, wait now…..I’m confused.
4) Red wine is a good thing.
5) I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world.
Life post-Korea is nothing that I thought it would be, could be, should be. It is more and less at the exact same time. It is more confusing then I thought it would be, full of strange contradictions that leave me breathless at times. There are moments I downright long for Asia and its mixture of reliable frustration and insanity. There are moments I count my lucky stars that I made it home when I did and knew that the time had come to say goodbye. And then there are the moments that I feel gobsmaked by the overwhelming pull I feel in both directions. Travel is a potent drug, and the realization, nay, the knowledge that a change, an adventure, an escape is as simple as a plane ticket away can be an intoxicating inclination. Mucking your way through a snowstorm at 7am can make the recollection of those beaches in Thailand downright painful. Feeling as though you are drowning can make you long for the days when you thought that treading water was the worst thing in the world. Or vice versa for that matter.
It’s one of life cruel ironies that hindsight is always 20/20 and foresight can be like trying to see through a brick wall by slamming your face through it. It’s the present that can, at times, seem the biggest mystery, to me anyway. The reality of not being able to see the bigger picture, the reasons why things seem to unfold the way they do. It’s fucking frustrating and I don’t like it.
The idea of being present is a new one to me. Revolutionary one might say. The simple concept of neither examining the past to ensure you’ve garnered all the life lessons you can out of past experiences, nor craning forward into the next phase in your life, squinting into the sun as you try to single-handedly catch all those curve balls that are racing towards your stupid blonde head. But maybe, just maybe, stopping to take a look around at what you’ve got going on in the here and now. Rolling up your sleeves and digging into what you’re doing now. Today. Dealing with the mistakes you make as you make them and trying not to beat yourself up for them…always forward….and onward.
Korea gave me, among other things, a chance to stop and examine what I wanted my future to look like, to be. I kept waiting, longing for that “future” to start, sometimes hating where I was at that moment, so intent was I on where I thought I wanted to be. And now that I’m here, in this “future” I so wanted, I find myself reexamining my time in Korea.
Never present.
A problem.
There are things I miss, people I miss.
There are things in my life that frustrate me, anger me, make me want to cry.
There are questions I have no answers to and places that I want to go to but am unsure as to the how. The when. The why.
These are three truths that were present in my life pre-Korea, during Korea and now, post-Korea.
So what?
What else has been present this whole time?
What, in my sweet, sweet life, is unique to now?
And, perhaps the most significant question of all…..
How can I incorporate massive amount of red wine into each and every occasion that falls into either of those categories?!?
Comments
And red wine definitely helps. Lots of it. :)