Still crazy after all these years…

One long ago winter’s day in Stafford, Virginia I sat down and crafted the first ever post here at Long Time Gone.   Looking back from the perspective of half a score of years, I can’t help but cringe a little at the naivete and cluelessness of the person I was back then.

I’m moving to Seoul, Korea. Although the general consensus among family and friends is that I’ve lost my mind (which I don’t necessarily deny), this is something of a calling for me.

I went on and on about duty and honor and serving those who served, which was perhaps the truth on some level, but as is usually the case with me, my motivations were at their core driven by my own selfishness.

I have lived a very comfortable life. Too comfortable perhaps. The chance to live and work overseas in a totally alien culture seems to be an exciting opportunity to get out of my box and experience a new lifestyle.

Now, what I meant to say here is that I hate my fucking white bread suburban life, I’m bored and miserable, and if I don’t find a way to get out of here I’m going to go batshit crazy. Although I guess maybe you can read that between the lines.

I have made a two-year commitment to the Army, and if I am miserable and lost and lonely, well I will deal with it and learn what I can from the experience. Going in, I have a positive attitude and believe that I have the power to determine what I gain and how I grow as I live this new life.

Oh my, but I was full of myself back then, wasn’t I?  That two years became six and carried me right up to retirement.  I did in fact find myself more than occasionally “miserable, lost and lonely”, as often as not from the sometimes cruel hearts of Korean women.  For example, a Korean woman I dated for almost two years broke up with me via email.  While we were living together!  Still, the good times outweighed the bad and in my ignorance I came to love Korea, even if I didn’t (and don’t) always understand her.  It is pretty funny that I actually believed I had the “power” to determine what I gained from the experience.  I still feel the pain of the things I lost by being here over the years.  What have I gained?  Well, I get to be the person I have become.  And I like that better than the person I was.

So, this blog will serve as a diary of my life in Korea. It will be a place where I share my thoughts on what I am seeing, doing, and learning.

I guess I got that part right.  Mostly.

I’m going to cut that guy from tens years ago a little slack though.  He wasn’t happy with his life and so he changed it.  There was a price to be paid for that, but I think it was worth it in the end.  And ten years later finds that guy back in Korea still pursuing his happiness. Hope springs eternal.

“Though half a score of years are gone,
Spring comes as sharply now as then—
But if we had it all to do
It would be done the same again.

It was a spring that never came;
But we have lived enough to know
That what we never have, remains;
It is the things we have that go.”

–Sara Teasdale