As the days come and go, I have started to think back to all of the memories I've made in Korea. Countless experiences, new friends, and ups and downs along the way. I found this paragraph I wrote on week three, and had to share. Almost a year ago, this was my first semi melt down, having just recenetly moved across the country to a new city. I still remember this night and all the emotions I felt. This has been the greatest year, every single day included.
"My Plan was to start a journal, diary, notebook, ANYTHING to write my thoughts and feelings down in. That was a fail. Trying to learn the ins and outs of a new job, a foreign language, and get settled into a new (huge) city took over. It's been three weeks since my flight landed and I haven't written a single thing down. I guess I cant complain about being so busy with awesome adventures and new explorations that it kept me from sitting down at a computer and typing it all out. Anyway, I'm going to try to start making a more conscious effort to document my thoughts and emotions as they come. Today, I was completely overwhelmed while riding the subway home from Incheon, and was flooded with negative feelings. I was tired from zero sleep Friday night and exploring all day Saturday. I was cold, dirty, but also sweating from rushing around the subway station going up and down every exit to try and find the right "blue" line. Why would they put a light blue and a dark blue line right next to each other? -- it makes stressed out Katie even more stressed out. I bought Spencer and Maggie a toaster oven from Lotte Mart for Christmas, and had to take it back from Incheon to Seoul on the Subway. I also had my weekend bag, a new shower head, a pencil holder, some new kitchen supplies, and everything else shoved into my Google backpack. Not to mention a plant sticking out the back of the zipper. I was just getting used to standing out in Korea, but imagine me with a turtle shell of a backpack on my back, holding a giant box with a toaster oven in my arms, subway card in my teeth, running through the subway station trying to find my way before darkness and below zero temperature rolls in -- there was no blending in. It wasn't pretty. This is when I hit my breaking point. I was finally on the train I needed, and was about to start my 1.5 hour journey home standing because the train was so full. That's okay - I can manage. I stacked my backpack on top of my box and reached for my phone. With a hand in my pocket i realized I didn't have my subway card. Obviously, I thought it was the best idea to fill the card before I left, so this lost subway card was full of money and gone forever. Ouch. Any of these little things that were bothering me would have been easy to brush off if they had happened alone. But, all of them at once, after a long exhausting weekend, was more than I could handle at the moment. I felt my eyes water up and I had to talk myself out of it. It wasn't that big of a deal. I shoved my headphones in and thought of Jere and Megs. Jere almost lost a bag of brand new jeans, a belt, some socks, and his favorite ear muffs just the night before. When I said, "You would have been SO mad If you lost that".. He said these things were all replaceable and it wasn't a big deal. He is so level headed. The day before, Megs had messaged me saying:
"Last night I was super nervioso about the interview and I started
playing music and "eyes" came on and it made me think of you and
I INSTANTLY felt better. You're my good mood pill!"
I put my headphones on a listened to our playlist and I felt 10x better. A little later, an old Korean man offered me his seat. I only had one more stop until my transfer so I smiled and pointed at the subway map. I wasn't sure how else to say 'no' politely, but he understood without explanation. I had a great weekend and I'm glad I didn't let one string of negative events ruin that. I am in Korea to be out of my comfort zone, try new things, learn, and in order to do that I am going to get frustrated. Things are going to annoy me and make me think "Why am I here?" "I wish I was in America!' But, the good always out weighs the bad. There is nothing I can not overcome and overcoming the negative times only makes me a better person in the long run, which is the ultimate accomplishment.
So, as far as subway meltdowns go: the Scoreboard stands
Korea - 0 Katie - 1."
Oh, Korea. I'm so glad I met you.
I love this post. It's so honest and from the heart! Korea definitely has its ups and downs and even now, I appreciate what I've learned from the hard times, as you can too I can see.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe we're about to leave when this time always felt too far away before. We just got back from my birthday dinner our with friends and I'm going to miss them all so much. This will be a very bittersweet goodbye.