Flight

"So, how was Korea?"

"What's it like to be home?"

Those are two questions I get asked often (from people on both sides of the planet) and really, most of the time I have no idea how to go about answering them.

How do I go about summing up two years of my life? How do I explain how both foreign and comfortable being back here really is? I really don't have an answer. It almost seems like there are two very different worlds - North American and South Korea - and when I'm in one place, the other seems like it doesn't totally exist. So the transition is a little easier, I guess, because "here" and "there" are such different experiences, but I don't really have the words to talk about it in a way that makes sense to someone who hasn't been through it.

I'm peeling like crazy from the sunburn I got on Waedaldo before I left. I almost want to make some sort of "shedding of skin" analogy, but that is a little overly dramatic, even for me. For so long I've been in transition, and I find that I'm still there, for the most part. Maybe once I have a job, my own apartment, and have settled into life more firmly I'll have some sort of reaction. But right now, it is all about what task needs to be attacked next - alway something.

Right now I'm staying in a house my parents have in Indy (they usually spend the week in TH), and I'll be here until I have a job, as I need to know where I'll be working before I decide where I'll be living. I basically need to keep setting things up and knocking them down for the next few weeks, and I'm so lucky that I have my family to help while still having the alone time to process all of this. From being able to stay here, to offers of furniture from the basement, all of this would be much more overwhelming without them.

So being home is... different. It is nice, in that I understand EVERYTHING, can read signs, can drive, can shop and have choice. I like being here, and it feels like, overall, Indianapolis is the right place for me. But there is still so much that I miss, and sometimes everything is just sort of overwhelming right now.