Tried and True

I suck at transitions.

I probably shouldn't have gone into a life of long plane rides, going here and there, experiencing seriously different climates and ways of life as someone who historically sucks at transitions. Oh well! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Thanks Kelly Clarkson and Vince Lombardi....

I returned to the good old USA on June 19th - welcomed by my two brothers, a pretty much sister-in-law and my mom. We wasted no time on that beautiful Minnesota afternoon, stopping by Chipotle on our way home from the air port - I couldn't have been happier. The weird thing is that I didn't expect to be happy. Even weirder is that I wasn't truthfully excited about coming home; I'd sort of become indifferent. (Let the record show - I was not actively UNexcited about coming home. I was, also, a blob at the end of the school year (to be fair)). I expected to grow tired of sharing a home with the people I love, of having to drive everywhere, of having to tip in restaurants, of having to schedule in all my friends and family like puzzle pieces, of feeling conflicted about wanting alone time. I expected these things in June because they had happened when I came home for christmas - and those feelings in December really surprised me. When I came home for christmas, I didn't think about experiencing transitions or culture shock. I thought it would all be a perfect christmas story book, complete with all my family drinking hot cocoa in our living room. The trouble there wasn't with the hot cocoa or rosy images of winter in Minnesota (hello, Polar Vortex!) - the trouble is that I had expectations.

When I moved to Seoul, I had very few expectations. I'd done my best, reading informative and current guides to Seoul and South Korea, watching the complete videography of Eat Your Kimchi, making a new Pinterest board about what I would come to call "SoKo". It was a GIANT change, but I had my mom and very few expectations. Those two elements helped that giant change to go pretty darn well. If you're facing a move, you should know that THAT large of a transition took me a lot of time (cue me, crying in a grocery store in October....), but the initial move to Korea went remarkably well. It seems that perhaps jumping into a pool of unknown might be easier than diving into a familiar pool....

So here I am - facing another transition.
I'm about to head back to Seoul to start my second year as a teacher.
To be 100% honest, at this very moment, I am not enthused about going back to Seoul on Monday. I could maybe be enthused about it if it was still 3 weeks away, but now it's 5 sleeps away, staring me in the face. I'm now thinking "okay, this will be my last load of laundry, so my dirty clothes need to go into a plastic bag that I'll pack in my suitcase". I'm now getting those stupid tasks done that I've been procrastinating for FAR too long (taxes? what are THOSE!?). I'm now scheduling social events in another time zone, on another continent... because all of these things are related to the fact that I'll be flying over the ocean in 5 days.
I guess I'm just here, babbling on, trying to get myself to let go of my expectations. I can't have expectations because that's what made transitions really hard. As an international teacher (or someone who lives abroad for an extended period of time) I'm at serious risk of never actually being in a place.  I've felt pangs of "I miss..." no matter where I am. I've felt it so often, now, that I'm unsure of what it would feel like to be contained and completely comfortable in one place. It seems like something that would be inevitable as we grow up, with all our friends and family moving to new cities because of jobs or their loved ones. ....But how would I know if this stretched, nearly haunted existence is a normal 20-something experience?

After re-reading this post, I feel I may be painting a dreary picture of my life. I think it's fair for you to read this and know these aspects of my life and profession. The atypical choice I made to be an international teacher has led me to know beauty in ways I never imagined - but it has also stretched me in ways I never imagined. What I've written about in this post is a way that I'm being stretched and challenged.

Hope I can let go of some expectations and hit the ground running and smiling in Seoul :)