All That You Can't (But Must) Leave Behind

Moving to Korea was one of the best decisions of my life, but that doesn't mean it's always sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. It's a trade-off, I suppose-- for every step I take toward building a life for myself here, I'm taking one more step away from the life I had back in the states. I know I've written about this before, but it's something I keep spiraling back to. I have a bizarre form of that trendy new malady FOMO, a fear of missing out on the things I'd have been doing had I not moved to Korea.

The most obvious thing to miss is family events. No matter how much you email and check Facebook and Skype, so many things fall through the cracks. My aunt went through a huge medical situation and I had no idea how serious it was until I visited home well after the fact and heard the whole story. That really spooked me.

While I must admit I don't miss my family as much as I feel I should (sorry mom!), my younger sister is the one who really gets to me. She's 5 years younger, at that age when she's changing so fast and learning so much about herself and the world, and I really wish I could be closer, to step back into my role of Cool Older Sister who Already Made All The Mistakes. Not that she won't make mistakes...but I could at least save her a bit of time on some of them.

I guess every decision has two sides. Huh. That sounded much deeper and more revelatory in my head. This has always been an issue for me, for as long as I can remember. I don't regret taking the road less traveled, and neither would I regret taking the road more traveled, but I get really anxious about the road not traveled. The second I choose one, I'm POSITIVE the other would have been better. If I choose to stay home for vacation, a nagging voice tells me I should have traveled. If I choose to travel, the same voice says I should have stayed home and saved my money. I'm the human version of a cat-- the moment I'm let outside, all I want in the world is to be let back in.

This is probably nothing special, but it drives me crazy, as much as I've learned to ignore it. It's a basic problem of not being able to trust myself. I don't know what I want, or maybe I'm too easily satisfied. But is being satisfied enough? Who knows.

I'm 26 now, almost 27, and while I know that that's not old any way you count it, the speed at which time passes is starting to get to me. It doesn't help that so many of my friends and coworkers in Korea who are around the same age as me are getting married and having children, and many of the people I know back home are buying houses and moving up in their careers, while I'm just sitting here...living a life that hasn't changed much in two years. Sure, I'm a better teacher than I was 3 years ago. My apartment is nicer. My Korean has improved. But to go back to a metaphor I use too often, all of this just feels like grinding for XP. I've been leveling up my abilities and now it's time to start a new questline, but I can't seem to find anyone with that telltale exclamation point above their heads.

There are all sorts of new life stages to move into. Getting married is one that a lot of people around me are doing, and while I'm certainly not ready for that, I feel a similar push to start moving toward something bigger. More and more I think that something is grad school, but that means letters of recommendation and a great deal of money and every time I think about it I feel immediately overwhelmed and end up scrolling through tumblr mindlessly for an hour. This, unfortunately, is my main response to hardship and difficulty.

I suppose the real issue here is that I hate uncertainty. Once I have a goal, I'm stubborn enough that I generally pull it off even though I'm a bit of a human tire fire with a tendency to do things wrong in new and creative ways! I guess if you fuck up enough times in a row it makes a positive? So far, that seems to be the way I've worked my way through life, but since it's gotten me this far, I guess it works. Plus I have no idea how to change.

So, that's where I am right now, older than I ever considered myself being. When you're sixteen and dreaming of a better future, 25 seems like a lifetime away. Now that I'm past that, the world is stretching out before me like an overused first snow metaphor, and I'm stuck in place, afraid to leave the wrong footprints.

This Accelerating Contradiction

Being alone has never really bothered me. I was an only child growing up, and whenever a play-date wasn't an option, I was perfectly happy playing pretend in my room for hours, reading, or (most embarrassingly) learning how to make databases on my mom's Windows 3.1 computer. There were so many floppy disks. It wasn't even connected to the internet. Am I dating myself?

Maybe I'm getting more introverted as I get older, or maybe I'm just noticing it more, but these days it's getting harder and harder to force myself out of the house. Through all my years of shared bedrooms and roommates, I always knew I'd love living alone--I just never knew how much. I spend all day turned up to eleven at school; I have to keep my students energized, talk to coworkers, and constantly switch back and forth between Korean and English (and sometimes Japanese when the kids try to mess with me). It is, in a word, socially exhausting. The feeling of stepping into my apartment and closing the door to the outside world is magical.

Most people who've met me have a hard time believing this, because I have an uncanny ability to talk to just about anyone, but socializing is not something I'm naturally good at. I had to train myself, and going to a party or even just going to work still requires a certain...different persona. When I worked in cafes and restaurants, I called it my Customer Service Face. It's the face that smiles at rude customers, that cracks cheerful jokes no matter what's going on behind the scenes, that can run on autopilot through most types of small talk. It's convenient, but exhausting to keep up. When it's cranked into overdrive, I can get home from a party or a day at work and barely remember a thing I said to anyone.

The reason for my aforementioned talk-to-anyone skill is likely my knack for reading people, reading the room, and modulating myself to match. I have to be careful, though, or I'll change so much I don't recognize myself anymore. It's hard for me to stop thinking about how others are perceiving me, how the way I act influences the atmosphere around me. With all but the absolute closest of friends, socializing is like solving a constantly changing puzzle. I'm jealous of those people who seem to always just "be themselves" no matter the occasion. But then again, maybe people think that of me? Who knows.

The upside of having a no-roommate apartment to go back to is that I can more easily recharge after these daily bouts with humanity. The downside is that in order to have friends/any social life at all, it's sort of important to, you know, leave the house. Ever. I know that once I get to the party, to the class, to the bar, what have you, I'll have fun. Usually, socializing is fun, no matter how exhausted I am afterwards. But the problem is, staying home alone is fun 99.99% of the time, and it requires neither a bra nor pants. So you see my problem. I also genuinely enjoy traveling alone. Sure, it's harder to take pictures and eat out in restaurants, but isn't that what the selfie-stick was invented for?

When they invent something that makes eating alone less awkward, I'll be first in line to buy 10.

I may be able to talk to anyone, but making friends has always been difficult for me. It takes me a long time to get close to someone, and my tendency to drop off the face of the earth (socially) from time to time means I lose a lot of friendships that don't have a strong enough foundation yet. Living in Korea has added a bonus boss battle: my friends keep leaving.

It's totally natural. The average stay for native teachers over here is 1-3 years, so it's to be expected that people will come and go. If I were better at making and keeping friends, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but when it takes at least a year for me to feel really close to someone, if they leave right after it's almost like losing out on an investment. This is kind of horrible to say, but it's almost as if I'm an employer who's spent a year training a new recruit only to have them quit. Eventually, I don't want to hire any new people, even though I know I need them. Does that make sense?

There's clearly some lack of logic between what I want to happen and what I do. Case in point: I want to have friends, but what do I do? Avoid my nice neighbor who just wants to get brunch with me because I want to...what? Go for a walk by myself? Stay home and play videogames? I honestly can't understand my motivations in a lot of these situations, and yet they keep happening in the same way. Anxiety is tricky that way, I suppose.

So I guess that's where I am now; trying to find a balance between enjoying solitude and cutting myself off from humanity. Where do I draw the line? When does self-care turn into something bad? Tune in next never for the answer.