In Koh Tao... finally!

It took me a full day to get to Koh Tao... but I'm here with Rebecca, lying on sandy beaches, sitting in beachfront cafes drinking watermelon juice and talking about Christian.... I miss you so much.

Grrrrrr....

I am well though, so no one worry. My bruise is starting to heal, and Rebecca says she thinks it makes me look like a hardcore traveller...

If they only knew... hee hee hee

Anyways, I'll be here for New Year's then its back to Phuket and then back to Seoul. I'm not looking forward to the near 20 hour bus/boat ride back to Phuket though... but Koh Tao is really cool.... Just like Koh Phi Phi.

Love and miss you all!

Ko Tao... here I come...

So, I'm headed to Ko Tao (a tiny island that supposed to be gorgeous). It's a crazy day long bus and then ferry ride out to the island, but the weather here has turned a bit rainy, and I am up for a road trip.

My friend Rebecca from Seoul is there now, so she's already got a bunglaow that we can share. It will be nice to celebrate New Year's Eve with her. I've had a ton of fun in Seoul with my two favourite R's ;o)

I talked to my grandma and my mom and dad through Skype today while I was in Phuket town... and it was soooo nice to hear their voices. I forget sometimes because Christian and I talk every single day when I'm in Seoul, but I forget that my parents also need to hear my voice. I LOVE YOU GUYS!! Can't wait to give everyone a big hug when I come home for a visit before I head to El Paso.

Today, I mailed off a box to my family of goodies from Thailand, chilled out in internet cafes, read in a teahouse while sipping oolong tea and petting a retreiver puppy, and did a little shopping. I really like Phuket town. Once you get your bearings, it's a pretty little town with a lot of charm and interesting places. I had dinner last night at a sweet little restaurant looking out on the street. I had a glass of white wine and a tomato and basil salad... mmmm... yum!

I actually think I might be going a little nutty though, cause I actually find that I can hear Christian in my head. What he would say and do when I see certain things that I know he would like. That probably sound totally crazy, but I just miss him so much.

This may seem a bit confusing to those of you out there, because I seem to be all over the place emotion wise, but let me try to put things in perspective.

I met Chris in Korea, and then he had to leave. And although I know that it wasn't his fault, nor did he have a choice in the matter (f$%king army), I didn't know how to feel about the fact that it was the life that I knew that had to completely change in order for us to be together. He had, in fact, met me because I was someone who had sought out a life off the beaten path... and now, the only way for us to be together was for me to leave that path for El Paso... the U.S....

I really wanted to be able to do it, but it kept bothering me when I thought about all the plans that I had worked towards in my life and how I would have to put them on hold for the next two years while he finished out his time in the army.

So, the 'thinks too much' part of me thought that we could just try to make it work with my in Korea and him in the states for a bit longer... but here's the thing

... once you've seen your life with someone you could love for the rest of your life, you can't imagine it without them. Nothing seems quite right without them actually.

When he first left, I wrote that Seoul had lost its colour... in truth, I think the colour has been lost in so much more than Seoul. I was wrong to think that I wouldn't be able to have the life I imagined if I left Seoul for Christian. I will have more than the life I imagined. I will have a man who loves me and wants to share the adventure with me.

Seoul was an adventure. China, Japan, Thailand were adventures. Texas... well, that will be an adventure all on it's own, but this time, there will be someone to laugh with me when it's all over.

On second thought...

Okay, so on second thought, things are okay. If I have to bide my time before the school year in Korea ends and I can move to be with Christian, then Thailand isn't a bad place to do it for the next week.

I've found a new guesthouse that feels more like me. It's a bit dated, but the people are so friendly and it's much more rustic and has a lot more character than the one I was at before. So now I'm just chilling in restaurants and bookstores and wandering around town. It's good. I'm much more of a city girl when I'm on my own because there is just so many more interesting things to see and do and you never feel lonely, even when you want to be alone. It's nice.

I love and miss you all and I'll be seeing you sooner than I'd planned.

El Paso, are you ready for me?

Hmmm...

I miss you, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing here without you. I woke today and found that I'm actually counting the days til I am back in Seoul, because that will mean that I'll be back with you sooner.

Thailand is still beautiful and serene, but the tourism is rampant this year (it was quieter last year because the levels of tourists were still down after the tsunami). I have met some interesting people, but I find I would much rather sit in a cafe or a beach chair and read my book rather than do the usual 'Where are you from? What are you doing in Thailand?" type of thing. I probably should have stayed on Koh Yao Yai, but I thought that maybe I was missing the city a bit... silly me... I am only missing you.

I love you handsome.

Pics from Koh Yao Yai

These are pics from the island that I stayed on the past few days. It was really nice, but I am missing Christian like crazy, and I actually find myself counting down the days til I will be back in Korea and then I can finish up my school year and then plan to leave and be with Christian.

Grrr... time is a funny thing.

Just when you need it... you don't want it anymore.

Bruises and Ipods continued...

So, I awoke, this Boxing Day, to find that the bruise I had received from my now notorious motorbike incident (it's hard to go unnoticed as the only girl on her own on the island), had developed into BY FAR the worse bruise I have ever had. Or seen. Even in medical textbooks. LOL! oops....

My mom emailed me wondering what would have happened if I'd fallen, been knocked unconcious and then bitten by a scorpion.

LOL!!!

Don't worry Mom... I wouldn't be too concerned about scorpions...

Now ravenous monkeys on the other hand...

;o)

Anywho... the second part of the first few moments of waking was that I decided to give the iPod another shot. I prayed a little to the iPod gods, and sure enough, it turned on and is working just fine. Wierd... no? Perhaps it was just on vacation for Christmas Day. That's reasonable enough I think.

Anyways, I'm leaving in about half an hour for Phuket Town again. I've decided that I would rather be among my kind, lonely travelers, so I'm checking back into the Phuket Backpacker if they'll have me... though I am considering a private room this time around. Then I PROMISE some phone calls home over the next day or two.

On the list of things to do are:
Hike a rainforest
Visit a Gibbon rehabilitiation park
Go island hopping
Shop a little for fun stuff for all you guys I love back home

I am tired of lying in the sun. So is my skin. Despite the four (okay five) bottles of sunscreen that I currently have in my possession, I have developed a little sunburn... okay okay... it's actually a bit of heat rash I think. Dammit! I am simply not a sit-on-the-beach-and-chill-for-hours kind of girl. I would like to be, truth be told. I would like that evenly bronzed skin to be mind just once, but I just get bored and burnt. So I'm off to eat in tiny Thai restaurants and meet some fellow lone travellers to explore the area with.

I miss you alot. A huge amount. This trip was exactly what I needed to know how I felt about being without you for the next two years while we wait for your 'tour of duty' with the army to be done... but I just don't want to do this all without you. It sucks. I will be out to you in March or August, depending on how I can work things out with my school and the contract, but we will definitely be celebrating Christmas together next year. I'm sorry that we didn't this year. I'll call you as soon as I can handsome. I love you.

Christmas, motorbikes, bruises... oh my!

So, I woke, on Christmas morning to find that not only had Santa not left me any presents, but he'd broken my iPOD. Completely. It wouldn't even turn on.

I knew it was only a matter of time, as I had loved this little iPod to death. I had used it EVERY SINGLE DAY since I bought it almost a year and a half ago, and I had been less than kind to it. I'm a klutz (which will be even more apparent in the second half of this post), and I have dropped it on several occasions. I've always said that if it every broke, I'd simply have to suck it up and buy a new one the same day. It has all the songs that Christian and I have sent to each other since we've been seperated, and it is my lifeline to a life I can't be a part of at the moment. But low and behold... it breaks when I'm in the one place where I can't buy an iPod if my life depended on it... an island in Thailand.

I decided that the iPod broken was a bit of karma (cause by now, I have already admited to myself that I should be with Christian... in Chicago, in El Paso, in Thailand, in Canada, in Korea... where ever... but with him). So I decide to explore the island on motorbike.

And this is where my being a klutz is most illustrated.

I had no idea a little Kawasaki motorbike could have so much power to it. And no idea that there was so much to riding one to begin with...

Hmmm... live and learn... and then get ice and bandaids.

It really isn't as bad as all that though. It was an interesting ride once I'd gotten back up, checked that all my bones and organs were still in tact. Luckily I'd worn long pants, but the large bruise on my inner thigh that is just now starting to rear it's ugly head will be a testament to my courage/bravery/stupidity.

So, that's what Christmas will be like for me this year. I'm on a beach, without the man I love, which is my own doing. And although I certainly deserve to feel lonely, I think that it was important to face myself here and to figure out why I was running from such an incredible person who only wants to love me in return.

I am simply scared to give up the life that I currently live. The one where I met him. The one that brought us together in the first place. I am scared that if I go to him, my life won't be the same. But of course it won't. It will be better. I won't just see the island, I will have someone to remember back on it with. I won't just have the adventure, but I'll get to relive it through someone else's eyes. I won't just fall off the dirtbike, but I'll have someone there to laugh their ass off with me about what a spectacular fall it was.

I love you, and I am so sorry that I ran from you. I was so scared that my life would be different, because I really love the life that I was leading when I met you. But this is not a change of paths, its just a turn in the road. And El Paso is not the place I imagined myself in a million years, but neither was Korea two years ago, and look at what an adventure that was!

Promise me that we will still travel. Promise me that we'll see far away lands and bring our children to places few of their friends will have ventured.

And most of all... promise me that you'll bring bandaids along... cause I'm a klutz on motorbikes and in love.

Koh Yao Yai

The internet is impossibly slow here, though it still amazes me that I can find a computer with a connection at all on such a remote island. So you guys won't get any emails from me over the next few days... this blog is the only thing I could seem to connect to at all.

The island is gorgeous, but I am missing Christian immensely... more than I know how to say. I am going to make the best of this vacation and do a lot of soul searching while I am here.

I am on this island for about three more days, then I think I'll head back to Phuket Town and do excursions from there. It was TONS cheaper and there was so much more to do then lie on the beach. I am not someone who can lie on a beach for a week. Let alone two. I now know this for sure about myself, though I did suspect it before. Once I have a bit more of a tan, and have got my fill of swimming (and being lightly stung by baby jelly fish) I will rent a motorbike (tomorrow most likely... Merry Christmas to me!) and explore the island. It is incredibly remote and mostly Muslim. It is wonderful and quiet and authentic. But I do like the bustle of a more populated centre, especially to explore the foods and markets of Thailand, so I'll probably head back to the Phuket Backpacker and set up shop there and then take off daily on exersions. We'll see. Sort of going by the seat of my pants on this trip.

Well, love to all. I promise that once I hit Phuket Town on the 26th or 27th I'll email and get you all up to date. I'll be able to upload pics too... so you'll be able to see that I'm okay and in fact, doing pretty well in such a beautiful place.

Love and missing you all!

All these parts,
like pieces of a puzzle.
Not quite touching
but not yet lost.

Welcome to Thailand... again ;o)

I've landed in Phuket and I'm just waiting at the Phuket Backpacker Hostel for my pick up. I'm heading to one of the islands for about four days... and I suspect even longer. My first impression of hostelling were not great, as I got very little sleep last night, but I did get in super late and didn't get settled at all, so now that I am, I can definitely see why it's a good option. This particular hostel is centrally located, neat, new and cool. It's actually a really nice place. I might check back in here if there's room the few days before I head home.

I find that although there are tons of opportunities to meet new people and mingle, I'm feeling only like seeking out silence and quiet and waves lapping on the beach. (I miss you)

I do, however, regret bringing my laptop. Although it is very handy to have, and I will certainly write more because I've brought it along, it is simply too heavy. It's a very light laptop by most comparisons, but when you are backpacking, any added weight makes a MASSIVE difference. Ah well... live and learn.

I wrote this last night in the airport in Seoul and on the plane to Thailand.

Love to all you snow lovers, and Merry Christmas!!

There are some very strange dichotomies in traveling. On one hand, those who love it do it to feel free and closer to the world. Less attached to physical, menial things that can be bought and more attached to experience, people, life.

Yet never are you more aware of the weight of things then when you are traveling. Then when you are carrying your possessions on your shoulders, in every sense of the word. Worrying about them getting lost, stolen, carrying the weight of them from temporary home to home. Storing them, retrieving them, locking them up, releasing them. Constantly searching for a place to put them down, leave them behind. A bit like running from whatever sent you searching in the first place. Never are you more aware of the weight of your life then when you are carrying it on your back. Then when you are leaving everything else behind.


Through traveling, I have left parts of myself everywhere. There are parts of me in El Paso, Texas, with the man that I love, Winnipeg, Manitoba, with the family I adore. There are parts of me with people I love in Australia. I have left parts of my heart in Thailand, some of my soul in Japan. I have left my love/hate relationship with the city in Seoul, and there are so many places left to visit and see… I wonder if I will have any part of me left when I get back to wherever I was meant to be settled.

But the more amazing part about traveling is that you also pick up things at each place that you add to yourself. Things that give you a completely different perspective or help you to understand something you thought you already knew… which is the best kind of understanding that you can get, I think.

Last time I was in Thailand, I was a scared, sickly girl…. getting over the pneumonia I'd been hospitalized for in Seoul and still grasping on to the training wheels that my friend Jerilynn represented for me during my first year in Seoul.

I return, now, without the training wheels. And although it is a little scary… and I wobbled a bit at first, once I learned to trust myself, I found that flying on my own two wheels was incredible. I could turn in any direction on a dime. I could fly or fall or just glide for a while… and it was only the road that had any affect on me or my decisions.

I am so sublimely happy right now. I have been searching all this time for a way to succeed… to be happy… to make my family proud… and in truth.. it was within my grasp all the time. I am sublimely happy. I am in love with the world. With a man. With the world. And although the two don’t seem completely compatible right now… both travel and this amazing man who loves me more than anything I have ever known, I still think that we can figure it out. I think it’s just a puzzle that I have to work through and unravel… maybe trim a few of the pieces so they fit together a bit better… I’m not sure yet. But I know that we'll figure it out. With time.

Time to think...

I need this... so much. I can't wait to just have time to be. To sit on a beach, or in the hammock on the balcony of my beach hut and just read and write and figure things out. What an amazing setting to do that in. It is something I've needed to do for a while...

I love and miss you all.

Merry Christmas.

I will be thinking about you.

Finding the Christmas spirit in Seoul

I've downloaded a ton of Christmas songs that my mom used to play around the house at this time of year. Nat King Cole and such. The weather is cool and crisp.

This is the time of year when being a teacher is even more rewarding... and is actually a saviour when it comes to the inevitabilty of missing your family while you are abroad. Kids are where Christmas is at.

The first snowfall in Seoul happened while I was teaching a class. I am lucky to have a wall full of windows in my classroom, but my back was to it when the first flakes started to fall. The kids, however, would not let me miss it! They were so incredibly excited, and so was I! I'm a Canadian at heart... from the praries... and snow is Christmas to me.

My class and I stood at the window and we watched the snow fall together and it was awesome. We talked about Christmas and they asked me about my family and Canada and I was high for the rest of the day.

This of course got me thinking about planning some more lessons around Christmas. I still have a workbook to get through and basic phonics to teach, but since we've been doing more writing, I thought we could do some letters to Santa. Anyone who teaches writing to kidlets knows it isn't their favourite thing to do. They love making up stories, but sitting in a class and writing isn't always top of the list for fun activiites. So I decided on letters to Santa! The kids were so excited and came up with such fun questions.

Of course, I teach five different classes, so that means about 50 letters. So guess what I'm doing tonight? And tomorrow night? LOL... but what better way to get in the Christmas spirit then responding to kids letters to Santa? I told them it would take five days for Santa to write back... and I can't wait to give them the handwritten letters, it's all they've been talking about all week!

I love and miss you guys and I'm sorry that I can't be with you this Christmas. Wherever I am in the world, I promise you will have me home for Christmas next year Mom and Dad! Merry Christmas and eat a little turkey and stuffing for me... I'll be eating pad thai and seafood like there's no tomorrow!

I love you guys!

Anatomy of a long distance relationship...

More anonymous comments on my blog... more judgements from the unseen crowd. And though I certainly deserve some of it, I still wonder why people are so quick to give me their opinions on my life. If you are leaving your thoughts anonymously, I would assume that you don't know me personally, because everyone I know would leave their name to back up their views.

A blog is by it's very nature, public. And this I understand. But people betray themselves by commenting on things they know nothing about.

I met a man in Seoul. He walked into my very happy adventure only because he was on his own. We would not have met any other way. (Had I been a different girl, satisfied with waiting in my hometown for the man of my dreams to carry me away to a different life, we simply would not have met, and he wouldn't love me as much if I was that girl anyway.)

And then he had to leave because of his job. Because of a choice he made long before he loved me. A choice that I never would have made for my life, but because I loved him, I never judged him for it.

The only way for us to be together would be for me to give up my current life and move to be with him. Give up my new home across the world. Give up my travels. Give up my job. Give up my salary (that I had worked hard to earn). Give up my friends here. Give up the country I called home for all the years previous. Give up living near my family again in the next few years.

But no one questioned what I should do. Myself included. I love him. I should do this to be with him. But he wouldn't have to change anything about his life. He was not required to give anything up to be with me. He did not have to make any decisions for us. Sacrifice any part of the life he had chosen up until now. And although I know life isn't fair, no one doubted that I should be the one to change my entire life for our marriage.

Of course I would be gaining him. Of course I would be starting a new chapter in my life. Of course I thought I wanted that when I said 'yes'. But saying 'yes' to marrying him, and 'yes' to giving up a huge part of who I was when he met me... they illicit two seperate answers. And as much as I tried, I couldn't keep the latter from affecting the former.

I love him... and if he was here, we would be together. We would never have been apart. We probably would have stood on a beach and said our vows, just the two of us and a minister... because that is how the story should have gone. But life got in the way in a million different ways.

But for everything that happened up until now, this decision, to fight this out and figure out how to be together, is a decision that only the two of us can make and consider together.

So thank you all, for your love and concerns... but even if you think you know, please have enough kindness and sense to understand, that if you haven't been in our shoes, haven't loved someone from another country in another country, then you can't even begin to.

Another laugh...

Panda Sneezes

This is seriously toooo funny...... sometimes, you just need a laugh.

I was simply not ready to risk resenting the man I love for the path I did not take and will always wonder about...

I am simply not yet ready to settle down and wait for him to be finished with a commitment he made before we had met.

I love him. Nothing and no one could ever change that, but I have remote islands to explore, a major metropolis to get a grasp on, rainforests and mountain ranges to lose (and find) a bit of myself in.

And one day... I will simply stop, in the middle of the adventure... halfway through the journey, and know that it is enough... and I am satiated. And that it is time to turn around and go find him on his adventure.

But until then, I am still on mine.

And he loves me enough to let me continue it.

And I love him because he understands me better than I have understood myself, until now.

Thailand calling...

There is something about Thailand that has lived in my soul since I was there last Christmas. This sounds a bit fanciful and flighty to me, but it is also completely true. I have loved all of the places I have visited for many different reasons. But some places just speak to a part of who you are. And the southern coast of Thailand is one of those places.

The only place in North America that I ever felt that way was Yellowstone National Park. I was there with my family when I was young, and then again with my dad and brother on a cross country trip when I was a teenager. I love it there. The proximity to raw nature. The serene silence. These are also the things that I love about Thailand.

I have enjoyed being in Korea because it has made me pair down a lot. At home, I had a car, brand new furniture, a big tv, a dishwasher... all things that tied me to one place... but here, I have very little that ties me to anything. I have wonderful people here, back in Canada, in the States, in Australia, and other parts of the world. But the physical things that I really cherish here can be packed in a backpack and taken anywhere with me... and I can't even begin to explain what an amazing feeling that is.

True, I still have physical things that tie me to Canada, (though the new furniture and dishwasher have since been bestowed upon my brother and his new wife... not to mention various other things from my very well decorated former apartment), but once you learn to live without, you start to really understand what it is that makes you happy. And in all honesty, it hasn't really changed in the past many years.

The things that I really need (and, subsequently, will be accompanying me during my time in Thailand) are as follows:

1.) a comfortable pair of shoes: for exploring, hiking, getting wonderfully/hopelessly lost, and finding my way back again.
2.) my iPod: with hours of music that ties me to home and past memories, including my brother's piano playing and songs sent by people I love
3.) a pen and a notebook: for all the crazy thoughts I have, in hopes of one day organizing them into some form of a book.
4.) some money (I am, afterall, a practical girl)
5.) band aids (I am, afterall, a most klutzy girl, who has every intention of risking falling down the side of the mountain, rather than not attempting to climb it at all)
6.) a bathing suit (never been into the whole 'walking around a beach naked cause I'm in my twenties and deluded into thinking that everyone in the free world needs or wants to see me naked on a nude beach)
7.) some tank tops and shorts (see above)
8.) sunscreen (see #4 above)
9.) a book (or two... or three. The idea of reading under an umbrella or in a hammock on the beach in Thailand actually makes my heart beat fast. Yes, I know that this admission may reveal me as the complete nerd that I am, but... books and secluded beaches... honestly, what more could you ever need to clear your head?

The people I love go with me everywhere. The confidence, support, love and kindness that they have shown me goes with me and I do my best to pass it on to the people I meet. This isn't hard in Thailand, partially because, if you let it, the beauty of the place becomes simply overwelming, and once you are open to it, it brings you closer to becoming (or maybe just understanding) the person you are.

It is an impossible thing to explain. I am simply not ready. I wanted so much to be. I love him very much, he is the most amazing man I have ever met. But love was never the question or the problem. I am simply not ready to give up my job and move to a country where I won't be able to work right away, and a town that I will have a difficult time building a career in.

You may think this is a cop out... or an excuse. But that really doesn't matter, because it doesn't change the fact that it's the truth. I have always worked. I have always paid my own way. I was financially independent from a very young age, and after paying my own way through university and moving out on my own and never having to ask my family for a cent, I have grown very accustomed to being able to always take care of myself. I never left a job without having another job to go to, almost always a step up from the last one. I have worked very hard, and coming out to Korea was a further way to make some more of my goals happen: traveling and still making good money and putting some away.

It has always been incredibly important to me to be able to take care of myself financially. And coming abroad also meant that I got to see how well I landed on my own two feet.

I love him very much. But being with him now means most likely never living in Canada again. It means moving to the states and hoping I can get a work visa and find a job that I can make decent money at. But I met him here because I wanted to travel and live a certain lifestyle. I don't need extravagant things, and I have never wanted anyone else to buy them for me, but right now, I have a nice place in a very busy city, I get to travel, my job is emotionally satisfying, I've grown a huge amount as a person, and I really like my life.

I would love him in it. I loved Seoul even more when he was around... his approach to life, his sense of humour, his never-ending kindess. And I know that all that will be there if I go to Texas to be with him. But I can't just go there. If we don't get married, he can't live off base, I won't be able to apply for a work visa...

If the option was just the matter of a move, it wouldn't be a problem. If I could move there and work and we could live together and take things a little bit slower, it would be absolutely perfect. But that isn't the reality of us.

He asked, and I said 'yes', because we both thought that it was possible. I hoped that I would be okay with making those sacrifices for us, and he hoped for that too. But he also fell in love with me in part for my independence, and I am simply not ready to give it up in the way that I would need to in order for us to be together right now.

I know that there are more places that I want to see, more things that I want to do, and I am not totally sure where I will end up, or exactly who I'll be when I get there, but the journey was always the point... and the truth is simply that I am still on it. And I am still making mistakes.

I should not have said 'yes'... but I love him. And when a man you truly love asks you, you say 'yes'. But wanting to be with him and wanting to move to El Paso ellicit two seperate answers from me, but this won't work unless they are the same one.

I hurt someone I love very much... but if I had married him, moved to El Paso, and resented, even for a second, the other paths that I had to give up to be there, I know that he would know it... and he deserves more happiness than anyone I know.

Looking back...

Previous posts from the past two years that I've been writing this blog.

(July 29th, 2005)
The type of woman I want to become...

*carries hiking boots in the trunk of her car for quick trips to the mountains

*has a dog from the local Humane Society, who lures her to jog at night or early morning while the rest of the world sleeps.

*take her child to the library on weekend mornings and helps them expand their imagination

*always keeps learning, through books, courses, and traveling

*meets with her girlfriends for brunch or coffee every few weeks, even when life threatens to get in the way.

*takes care of her body, but nourishes her mind constantly.

*finds time to read in a comfortable chair in the sunshine, with a tall glass of iced tea.

*always takes advantage of candlelight

_______________________________

(February 22nd, 2005

Keeping distance

We are so different
her and I.
your two lovers.

She is the willow,
bending in the wind.
The sunflower,
turning to face you
wherever you go.

I am the oak.
Stubborn roots.
Unshakable core.
I am the butterfly
that moves on quickly
always aware of the fading light.

She will always stand there waiting
or be replanted wherever you choose to take her.

But I will not aquiese.

I will always be stubborn and full of flight.

No matter where I go
my blood
my roots
give me wings. give me strength.



Korea

The only answer that I have
is that 9,000 miles away lies an adventure I cannot turn back from.

And the question
of why I am going
won't be answered
until
I
return.

________________________

August 2nd, 2005

I know that I'm not doing this right. I mean, you are supposed to write from beginning to end... start to finish. I know this. I've been told that all my life. But I didn't live my life that way. I never followed a straight line, or stayed on the worn path. I don't think that many people do, although for some reason, we all think that we should.

I have lived my life forwards and backwards and from right to left and back again. I have made the mistake and learned from it, and then made the same mistake all over again. I have fallen, got back up and then stumbled forward, backward, and ended up right back on my ass. And I would probably do it the same if I had it to do over. But that is a chance that none of us get. We don't get to watch our lives from the outside in. We never get to see the curves before we hit them or the bottom before we jump. Instead, we live our lives at the controls. Making decisions along the way that move us in a completely different direction than we meant to go, and maybe, if we are lucky, lead us back to where we want to be.

_____________________

March 19, 2006

The things I know for sure (at this very moment) are this:

*I will get wrinkles and laugh lines. And I will earn every single one.
*I will age, and my body will grow tired of mountain peaks long before my brain or heart tires of them.
*Good friends are worth so much more than their weight in gold.
*There is art in everything ordinary.

______________________

May 23, 2006

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Edward Abbey

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
Flora Whittemore

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
Gloria Naylor

"...because freedom continues to be the thing I prize most in the world. Of course, this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done and which I will not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked for their forgiveness, when I realised that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don't regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed with tears." (Paulo Coelho)

I am so sorry that I didn't know myself better until now.

From a conversation we should have had a long time ago...

...and some truths just aren't negotiable, no matter how much you wish they were.