Oh, another love has come and gone
Oh, and the years keep rushing on
I remember what you told me before you went out on your own:
“Sometimes to keep it together, we got to leave it alone.”
So you can get on with your search, baby, and I can get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find , that it wasn’t really wasted time

Just over two months into my new life here in the Philippines. Been engaged in some introspection about where I am and how I got here. The result of this self-assessment is probably nothing new or particularly interesting (ha! big surprise!), but here goes anyway.

I’ve been asked “are you happy there?”. Well. This is me we are talking about after all. So no, I wouldn’t describe myself as happy. But I can say that I’m happier with this life than I was with the life I left behind in Korea. Those hellish last three years there anyway. I’m adapting to my new environment pretty well I’d say and on balance my life is easy and comfortable here. Maybe that’s enough.

As long time readers may recall, I had originally planned to move here in September 2010. And then I took a detour and chose a life with Jee Yeun over the Philippines. I guess in retrospect you could call that a mistake. But I’m beginning to see it differently. It was a good life for the most part. Living six months in Korea and six months in the USA gave us the best of both worlds. We had a sweet little house in South Carolina, spent time with the kids and grands, and then we’d jet off to enjoy some time back in vibrant Seoul. Things weren’t perfect of course, in real life they rarely are. Looking back on it, my biggest complaint was probably that it could get boring at times. Then again, when you are not working it seems inevitable that some of those hours will be filled with boredom. That old Chinese curse “may you be destined to live in interesting times” just came to mind. So I guess the flip side of that would be that boredom is a blessing. Eh, there are worse things than being bored occasionally.

Everything changed in 2015 when Jee Yeun announced that she didn’t have a happy life with me and wanted a divorce. I still do not understand why she walked away from everything we had built together. And I will probably never completely recover from the emotional devastation her betrayal of our vows brought about. She told me before I left Korea that she regrets her decision. Too little too late and we will both have to live with the consequences of her actions for the remainder of our lives. For better or worse and all that jazz.

So, one of the benefits of living in the Philippines is I do not have to contend with daily reminders of that life. Except when I do.

The God of Love has a whacked sense of humor. This boat is parked at Treasure Island, smack dab in my line of sight from the bar. You can run, but you can’t hide from the past I suppose.

Here’s the big revelation or epiphany or whatever you want to call the fruits of my feeble thinking. I used to look at those years with Jee Yeun as wasted time; a big mistake that cost me several precious years of whatever time is left to me. An unfortunate and unnecessary delay in taking the path that led me to my current destiny. I don’t see it that way now. There were lessons to be learned from that life and hopefully I’ve learned them now. And while I wish I hadn’t lost what I had, I’ve let go of the bitterness (most of it anyway) and perhaps I’ve positioned myself to be ready for the next big thing, whatever it is and whenever it comes along.

It turns out that the Philippines truly was my second choice. I plan to make the best of it.

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared ‘neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you’d ever say goodbye

And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance