Revisiting Korea

 We have been staying in Korea for the past six weeks now and it has been a wonderful trip. Jacob has had the chance to spend quality time with his paternal grandparents and aunt and meet some of our friends here, which has been great. He is certainly adored and treated like a little prince which is always wonderful to see. 

For me, it has been an interesting experience being back in the land that I called home for a large chunk of my young adult life. I must admit that I had romanticized my time in Korea before coming back to it. I had imagined visiting some of the restaurants, meeting places and neighbourhoods that I spent so much time in and feeling flooded with fond memories of familiarity. What has surprised me though is how my experience here has been completely different. A reminder that I can go back to a place I'd been before and even if it remains the same, I am no longer the same person that I was when I was there before. 

More than anything, I have been reminded of the reasons why I left this beautiful country four years ago. In visiting places that were once a part of my daily life, and seeing that they remain largely unchanged, I have felt an emptiness there. I have realized just how much my life has changed in the last four years, and how this is not my home anymore. 

This is not to say that the country has not been incredibly good to me because it has been. and I will always be called to it. I've married a Korean man, and we have a half Korean son. This will always be home to them, I hope to create that for Jacob as he grows up. And our life here is so vastly different than the one I lived before. It has just been confronting.

I am a relatively sentimental person, and so, although I had expected to be flooded with happy memories and feelings when revisiting old places, I was actually surprised to feel a sadness when there. We have also been staying in Suji, which is a suburb outside of Seoul and so I have found myself wanting to explore this new area which is very child friendly and stay close to home. Yeorum's parents have been hosting us in a beautiful apartment here where we have been able to recreate Jacob's routines and make ourselves very much at home. 

Korea was a country that I experienced so much growth in. I came here at twenty-three for an adventure, ready to travel the world and party hard. I then got sober and experienced a type of settling into myself, getting married and creating a home and life here in my late twenties. I also realized at the end of my time here that I had dreams for myself that could not be fulfilled in this country because of my inability to communicate in the language and several other factors holding me back. I sought out a new beginning, a homecoming to build a foundation for myself. It was in Korea that I gained the confidence and realization that I could go after those dreams of starting over in Canada. In coming home, starting a new career here, ending my first marriage and discovering an even deeper love in my partner Yeorum here, I was able to build the life I had been dreaming of. Little did I know, it would be even better than I had imagined. 

I do not miss my old life here in Korea, but I am so incredibly grateful for how it shaped me into the woman I am today and prepared me for the life I am living in Canada now. I am grateful for the interconnectedness of both lives and how they will forever be intertwined for futures to come. When I first landed in Korea ten years ago, I felt a deep connection to this place, there was a part of me that felt as though I had been here before and another part that was completely naive to just how foreign this land would be for me. When I spoke to Yeorum for the first time on the phone two years ago, I felt that same familiar pang in my chest, the recognition in his voice. As if I knew him already. Little did I know that two years later we would be building the life we have together and visiting his home country, me as a different woman than the last time I was here. And most of all, bringing our son to the country that connects us both, that represents his father and his ancestry. It is beautiful to be here with my husband and family. 

And I am also looking forward to going home.