(Written two weeks after coming home.)
Already I miss Korea. I was desperate to leave the situation I was in, but Korea itself was never the problem.
I miss walking up the uneven sidewalk to the crosswalk, where I always waited. Sometimes I waited with others, sweat pouring off me in the summer humidity.
Sometimes I waited in silence, the special padded silence of falling snow, on those rare mornings it fell.
Sometimes I would run into a coworker. Let’s leave it at that.
I miss the walk; that calm ten to twelve minutes on the way, when the steady rhythm of my feet evened out the day ahead of me. The first wrinkle ironed.
I must have walked that way and back hundreds of times. Almost every day for two years. Sometimes on weekends too. I wonder if I had closed my eyes and felt with my feet if I could have guessed where I stood at any point along the way.
I miss waiting for the 102 bus to Jeongja, where I played D&D. I miss walking to the station in fine weather to the mall to shop, or just to the Kimbap King to get food that didn’t come from a convenience store.
I miss the spring rain of cherry blossoms.
I miss the few friends I made there. I miss the things we said to each other every day.
Funny, how quickly all the problems shrink as they move past. Funny, how everything that seemed heinous seems laughable now. Funny. It’s not.
Korea from this moment looks like my regular life, the one I will return to when I wake up.
I wonder what Korea will look like when I realize I have woken up.
I wonder what Korea will look like ten years from now.
Korea, Korea, land that I miss.
A.M. EDMONSON 
Interestingly, I started writing about Cambodia yesterday. I’m starting to feel closure, if I can call it that. Still rummaging through my mind, trying to make sense of things, but I’m getting there – hopefully.
xxoo
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I’m still waiting for closure. Heck, I haven’t even been able to wrap my head around New Zealand, although that’s probably because there’s too little instead of too much stuff. Korea will take a while. I’m poking at bits and pieces here and there. The poems I wrote in the midst of it all, the pictures…but I won’t be able to assess it for a while still. I’m glad we’re both getting there~
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Yessss. I just deleted what I originally wrote and now I’m starting over with a new idea. But! I plan on drawing this out. I feel like I’m just beginning, you know? Yes, you do 🙂
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I felt the same remorse (?) when I left San Francisco..once it’s in the past it seems as though all problems were insignificant compared to the feeling of longing and belonging to a place that is now out of reach. Hope you find peace with your new home life and adapt well!
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It’s kind of like remorse, kind of like fondness – it’s hard to describe! I know it was time to move on, but there will always be the good memories there.
Thank you for the well wishes!
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