Why on Earth...

For some, travelling to a faraway country where the people, the language and the culture are all different than your own, is just a ‘lark,’ something to do before they force their square-peg-selves into the round-peg-lives that home holds waiting. I say this because it seems that most people I met travelling (save for those 1 or 2 I can think of that rushed back home after hating every second of living abroad) are definitely square-pegs. They don’t necessarily fit in with, or agree with, the paths that life sets before them, (graduate, go to school, graduate again, get a job, keep the job, get married, get a new job, have kids, retire, buy a motorhome, blahblahblah) and they go off in search of some kind of adventure or excitement, leaving friends and family behind to make a mark of their own upon the world.


It seems to be considered pretty normal for people to stay a year, mayyyyyyyyybe two in Korea, before returning home to their normal lives. Once you've been there more than two years you start down that road where people call you a lifer, and there are some hushed conversations about you with new teachers that come over about  how you prefer Korea to living in your own country.


Now most people seem to manage to return home after their teaching experience to find life is pretty damn unchanged for everyone who stayed behind (other than the occasional new hairstyle/boyfriend/tv show). The biggest group seems to be able to jump back into it all, either one foot at a time or both feet at once. There are many of us though who return home and feel a bit lost, a reverse culture-shock that you never really seem to get over, always homesick for the land that was every so briefly considered to be home. Me - I'm one of the lost ones.


I loved my time in Korea, both trips. I loved life there, and every day was out of the ordinary, even after being there for a couple of years in a row! I enjoyed the people I worked with, my jobs, the kids I taught, the moms I taught, the grocers down the road, the dude that owned the pet shop, the Saturday morning bus driver – all of it! But don’t get me wrong here, it wasn’t all roses and candy apples! I didn’t love the smog, the pushing and shoving in the crowded grocery store aisles, missing my friends and my mom (and taco bell!) – but other than that, I loved every friggin’ minute of it.


Now I think I've already discussed the fact (I think) that I didn’t come home for myself from either trip. During my first trip in 2003 I got myself involved in a really yucky (hindsight being what it is!) relationship with a New Yorker who was living in Seoul, got engaged (more bad choices), and came home in 2005 because he was ready to. The second time I went in 2006, and I had to come home before I was even gone a year because there were family issues and my mom needed me. I've been home now for just over 2 years and I've wanted to go back ever since.


After I spent the required amount of time at home with my Mom I moved back to my 'old' city, applied for grad school (got in), got a job (and then a few more along the way as I tried to find something to do that I could love), started grad school, got involved in a few community groups, found a decent job, and tried to buy into the life-at-home. I worked on ignoring the loud voice at the back of my head that chattered on and on about going back, about skipping out of this version of life that feels like a grind, and returning to the speed of life that made me happy. I think mostly what has kept me here is graduate school, and the idea that I'm getting older, and it's getting time now to choose a career, have a grownup job, do right by the family, and all that crap. I call it crap because it seems that no matter how I try to make it fit and make myself believe it, it doesn't and I don't. I don't want to buy a house. I don't want a new car. I don't care if I can go up to visit family every month or so, I don't care if there's a taco bell on every corner, and I don't care that my post-post-secondary education is going to help me make the world a better place. The thing I keep getting hung up on is this - how am I to make the world a better place if I can't even be happy in it myself?


So here I still sit in small town Alberta taking classes, working in a good full-time job, visiting my family, hanging out occasionally with friends. Why on EARTH am I still here?