EPTAlright Teamliquid. I feel like I don't know most of you anymore, probably because I don't. That's okay, contributing to new blood is always a good thing, but old friends show your faces! I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I have a few different types of things I'd like to post. Love, Korea, and introspective prose painted with real and fake events. TL strikes me as a testing ground for things I might post more publicly or seriously later. Here is full of such various people who actually care. I'm not really interested in critique since my style is what it is. But, I'm interested in what you think, and what I wrote made you think that way. I'm interested in life and the people who live it.
I've been pretty inactive the last year or so, which includes the entire year that I was gone living in Seoul, South Korea. 2010 proved to be the most intense year of my life, by a long-shot.
To cut to the chase, my experiences abroad, alone, and surrounded by nothing I initially expected really changed my eyes and heart in a lot of ways. Korea and it's culture will always have a deep part of my heart, and I've made some infallible relationships there. I experienced both 한 and 정 for everything that they mean. I worked the worst job of my life, while having the most fun. I made fantastic friends but was also surrounded with individuals I would deem practically unworthy of living. I was blessed with a hundred chances to get feisty and physical with the most beautiful girls, with no strings or hardships attached. However, the lack of strings in front of me made the strings still attached to my own heart tug even harder--the ones I thought I left at home.
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You see, there's a girl. I met her my freshman year of high school, the first class of the day, in 2002. We always liked each other, but just remained friends until the summer of my graduation. In 2005, I moved from Highlands Ranch, Colorado to Orange County, California and left all my relationships. Funny part is that I only got closer to some people, after I left. High school was blowing by, and as an excuse to visit everybody, I took this girl to her prom back in Colorado. Everything towards each other that we had bottled up came seeping out the reserves. Things snowballed and neither of us could stop this illogical, long-distance idea. Through starts and stops, up's and down's, it's now 4 and 1/2 years from when that all began; let's just call it all "life".
We were actually separated for the better part of a year before I left for Korea. She started school a year late and wants her teaching credential on top of that, and I finished university a year early. 5 - 2 = 3, and that's how many years of life we're apart, even at the same age. Though we view the world with a pair of shared eyes, we were in different places. A naive sophmore dating a graphic designer who's on tour with his band figuring out life for the first time without a syllabus.
However, New Years Eve rolled around, and after 8 months of silence, something possessed us to hang out. That day has ritualistic festivities known well, so a smooch may or may not have occurred. But, until my departure in February, a day passing couldn't find itself with out us together. Eventually, I left, and silence took over once again. I wanted to embrace Korea with everything I had, live as they did, reject my preconceptions, dig into my 9 years of friendship with Koreans and put it all to use. I'm going to have to write a separate blog about all of this at some point because it's too insane and too intense to weave it into this saga, but it's critical to my perspective shifts.
Back home, as usual, the flowers and phone numbers were flying in like shells on D-Day. True to form, they didn't mean anything to her ...for a while. Both of us, open to lives away from each other, she started to feel these opportunities out. So a couple guys at a time would be pursuing, and she'd see what was out there a bit at a time. One guy was better than another, so things got whittled down; a process of elimination. Then it started getting a bit more serious with this person, then that one... Then I realized I knew one of these people, and it made me feel crazy inside. To my surprise, I felt something, and not just anything, but like my intestines were morphing into a baneling. This hit me hard: I cared. I've left out a ton of details, but this was the start of a campaign, to try and win back real love; to win back substance in the face limitless lust and irresponsibility. VIP entrances, 5:00 AM, beats blaring, $600 tables, drink after drink, girl after girl ...I could only think of her.
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I went to extreme measures, actually cutting my stay in Korea shorter than planned. I vowed to write every single day until my return, and this is where I'm going to publish my musings one at a time. I couldn't miss one day until I came back. I couldn't write anything less than things that could captivate with fervor. I couldn't screw this up, this was my last chance, ever. I knew this meant that I might never return to Korea again, but in the long run, this is worth it. This could be worth it.
Day 37:
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"Two-hundred twenty-three days ago, I saw her face with my eyes for the last time. Two-hundred twenty-two days in a row, I’ve seen eyes caressing me through glass. She’s been with me, looking right back from the ledge above my bedpost. The flag on my wall gives me a bit of pride, but the girl who’s eyein’ me gives me more. Her sweet smile leaps across the satin-skin of her shoulder. She welcomes me home and makes this room a whole lot less vacant. When she’s not in my eyes, she’s in my dreams. After a bit of wrestling with the sheets, the memory of her shape makes me sleep a little deeper. No matter how hard I hold them, these linens never fit the same—the cotton breathes too much, and my skin can’t be tricked."
The rest soon.
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