I wish days and distances would disappear. I want the days to stop moving forward and I want to be in the future now.
I want to be hiking in Coto early in the morning with Aubs and Champ. I want to be having brunch with my mom, Jen, Elise and my nieces and nephews at Cinnamon Productions. I want to be sitting on the beach in Saint Vincent taking 100s of pictures and talking about saving the world with Erica and Stephanie. I want to be in Utah going on a short run around Spanish Fork with my darling students-runners from ALA. I want contemplate a thousand questions that can't be answered over a Pesto Quesadilla at Guru's with Addie. I want to walk around the streets of Paris with Kristen discussing our future plans and laughing with insecurity that we're actually going for it. I want to end the night at Basement, dancing and chatting through all sorts of language barriers with my friends from Korea, Japan, South Africa, Ireland, Indonesia, China, etc!!! I don't want to sleep. I don't want my days or nights to end. I want the next day to be filled with road trips up the coast, NYC cafe's and shows, and feeling small in Yosemite, Iquazu falls, Angkor Watt, and on my little sailboat in the middle of the ocean with my dad.
Today I want to be everywhere and I want to see everyone, yet the emotion of having to choose one thing and one person at a time is paralyzing. I have 12 days to say goodbye and simultaneously be excited for my reunions with home. Balancing my emotions is difficult.
I feel bipolar. I have the highest highs. I LOVE my life, my friends and my experiences in Korea. I love the stranger who smiles at me, the ajimmas that proudly ask if the gimbop was masshisayo. I love laughing at my students creative essays and listening to their stories about head-cutter machines, ghosts and visiting grandma's house (my students are weird!). I love my mountain hikes and river runs. I love how I feel when my Korean girl friends say hello. I love my routine phone calls to my BFIKs on my bus ride to work each day. The amount of love I have for this place is overwhelming and as I make an effort to indulge in every bit of it as I can before I go, sometimes I become completely deplete of emotion and must feel sad for a moment. Sad that it's coming to an end and sad simply because I need to come down from the high of it all.
I'm excited to go home. I don't know what home will hold for me, but I know it's where my family and childhood friends are. These people have taken a continued interest in my life even though I've been far away for a long time. I'm overwhelmed again by the love many people at home have for me. How did I become so lucky!?! How is it that I can have friends, family and communities all over the world that I love and love me back? How did I gain this perspective and how can I be sure never to loose it? How can I be sure that they know how much I value and appreciate them? I want them to know how grateful I am that their actions have taught me how to love and trust again.
I've never been here before. I think about where I was two years ago and am humbled by the contrast. That ending was filled with so much sorrow and this ending is filled with so much joy. I want to be here forever. I hope this exuberance is never stifled by another hard time or scared to truly show because of insecurity. I hope I can be a pathogen and that this love for life is contagious. I know I caught it from others and am eternally grateful they could share it with me.
I can't think of a better gift then the ability to love one's life. Thank you to those who have helped me develop this part of me. I hope I can do the same for your throughout our friendships regardless of time and distance.
I LOVE.
