1 Day Remaining
Jul. 17th, 2023 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morgue_nToday I said goodbye to my brothers, and so I have wept. I'm still feeling pretty emotionally unbalanced. It's okay. Now is the time for sadness.
Tonight, full of nervous energy and not really wanting to be alone with my thoughts, I'm packing as I type this. I roll my wooden and metal idols-- Yama, Buddha, Ganesha, Bodhidharma, Shiva, Morana, Janus, Thor, etc-- up in my blue jeans, protecting them from bumps and bruises as they're tossed around the tarmac. In South America, I might finally add Jesus, Mary, and some saints to my collection of gods.
My sister in law asked me how this exit from the country compares to all my others.
This exit feels like my first. In 2012, when I first left the USA for Korea, I sensed that a part of me was dying. I don't mean to be dramatic here, but that move was characterized by intense loss. My girlfriend and I broke up. My family grieved my passing. I was leaving everyone and everything in my life, heading to a giant unknown. I had the vague understanding that moving to Korea would be good for me, financially speaking, perhaps spiritually too, but to be frank with you, I dreaded it. I was terrified.
My first time flying out of country felt like purgatory. 30+ hours of transpacific travel by plane-- layovers and all-- isn't fun. You're stuck in this strange liminal state, not asleep really, not awake, not here, not there. Both. All. None. It was a surreal experience for me too, being surrounded by an ethnic group whose language I didn't understand, a type of people I had never interacted with and knew nothing of outside of certain brands. Hyundai. Kia. etc.
When I arrived, I spent the next year or so living through an infantilizing experience. I could not speak. I had to learn to read again. I had to learn how to shop, how to do everything, really. I needed someone to hold my hand, at least for awhile. I smashed buttons in my apartment that controlled the air-conditioning, ondol floors, television, shower. Square peg, round hole, trial and error.
This time, I feel a similar metaphorical death approaching, but this time, I'm not as afraid, but the grief is about as bad. I have a better idea of what to expect, and I expect it to be easier. Moving to a country that uses a Phoenician alphabetic system makes it way better. cognates are my friends. If I could handle the endless rorschach test of chinese characters and survive, Spanish will be ezpz.
But god, saying goodbye to my brothers is a tragedy.
Tonight, full of nervous energy and not really wanting to be alone with my thoughts, I'm packing as I type this. I roll my wooden and metal idols-- Yama, Buddha, Ganesha, Bodhidharma, Shiva, Morana, Janus, Thor, etc-- up in my blue jeans, protecting them from bumps and bruises as they're tossed around the tarmac. In South America, I might finally add Jesus, Mary, and some saints to my collection of gods.
My sister in law asked me how this exit from the country compares to all my others.
This exit feels like my first. In 2012, when I first left the USA for Korea, I sensed that a part of me was dying. I don't mean to be dramatic here, but that move was characterized by intense loss. My girlfriend and I broke up. My family grieved my passing. I was leaving everyone and everything in my life, heading to a giant unknown. I had the vague understanding that moving to Korea would be good for me, financially speaking, perhaps spiritually too, but to be frank with you, I dreaded it. I was terrified.
My first time flying out of country felt like purgatory. 30+ hours of transpacific travel by plane-- layovers and all-- isn't fun. You're stuck in this strange liminal state, not asleep really, not awake, not here, not there. Both. All. None. It was a surreal experience for me too, being surrounded by an ethnic group whose language I didn't understand, a type of people I had never interacted with and knew nothing of outside of certain brands. Hyundai. Kia. etc.
When I arrived, I spent the next year or so living through an infantilizing experience. I could not speak. I had to learn to read again. I had to learn how to shop, how to do everything, really. I needed someone to hold my hand, at least for awhile. I smashed buttons in my apartment that controlled the air-conditioning, ondol floors, television, shower. Square peg, round hole, trial and error.
This time, I feel a similar metaphorical death approaching, but this time, I'm not as afraid, but the grief is about as bad. I have a better idea of what to expect, and I expect it to be easier. Moving to a country that uses a Phoenician alphabetic system makes it way better. cognates are my friends. If I could handle the endless rorschach test of chinese characters and survive, Spanish will be ezpz.
But god, saying goodbye to my brothers is a tragedy.
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no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 07:01 am (UTC)How interesting. This is exactly how I experience travel, but for me, it always was a pleasant experience. Not being anywhere, having a break between life and life, no expectations, everything is suspended, just breathe...
And I really get the infantilizing part, thanks for putting it so aptly! I've been through it more than once, I hate it. On the other hand, it's a great feeling once you've learned all of that, and you feel like you're more than what you've been before. So, in a way, I think I want to say: besides dying, you're also being born as a new person. That's rare and valuable.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 04:46 pm (UTC)