Going home on a roller coaster.

Well, I'm heading home tomorrow. Not in the way I thought I would be, a year ago this month. Instead of saying tearful goodbyes to my friends in Korea, instead I'm saying "I'll see you in a few weeks!"

I've re-signed with my school, and will be staying another year. A WHOLE year. By the time I finish, I will have been an expat in Korea for 2 years.

A year ago today I was an emotional wreck. I was saying goodbye to my friends, my family, my cat. It was the proverbial jump into the abyss of the unknown. It was the biggest move I've ever made to come here, and by far the one that required the most guts. Now that I've flailed about in the abyss and come out on the other side, its not such a big deal.

Its a tough choice to stay here, where I have a stable job and the ability to travel wherever I choose on my many breaks through the year, or to go home and move on with my life goals there. While travel and job stability are great things, they fall short of substituting for home. And, while the comforts of home are pleasing, they will always be there. The grass is always greener.

To be completely honest, I thought this may happen. When I was saying "I'll see you in a year" when I left last March, deep down I knew it would be longer. I didnt want to say it, keeping my fingers crossed that if I didnt say it then it wouldn't happen. But now it is and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

By the time I left Portland, I had been living there for 5 years, had seen my professional aspirations to their height, and completed everything I said I wanted to accomplish about 20 years earlier than I thought I would. I had watched myself get frustrated with Portland's perpetual state of apathy, and as this frustration grew so did my need to get out. The song lyric from the recently publicized "Portlandia" TV show is true: Portland is where young people go to retire.

I am FAR from retirement.

Sitting here, at my desk at school, I reflect on the last year: I came to Korea like a newborn being thrust into the world, throughout the move my Mom met the precipise of death and retreated from it to the safety of good health, my friend group has both stayed loyal as well as changed dramatically, I've covered 3 countries in 10 months, I've felt the disappointment of life once again as I didnt get into the Graduate program that I envisioned, and I've found my calling as a teacher. It's been a rollercoaster that I now realize is going to be the norm. For years, I've waited for the ride to end, asking "When will it just calm down?" but now have come to see that the ride is life and the end is death. Its always going to be this way, and to accept it is to really embrace living.

Tomorrow I will hop on yet another plane, my 4th international flight in 11 months, and try to summarize my life in the Korea section of my personal amusement park. There's just no way to explain what my life is like here. To try and put verbaige to the nuances that make life in Korea vastly different than that of home, is a futile discussion.

Going home and seeing it with fresh eyes is almost more exciting to me than going to unknown countries that I've only seen in books. To learn, again, how to appreciate where I'm from and who's in my corner is the best discovery I can have. I guess its possible that I may discover things that scare me, but for now, I'm just holding on and letting the ride take me where it leads.

See you Stateside in 48 hours!