You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Saying goodbye… to my family, my friends, my home, my community, my state, my whole freaking country… and even to some cherished sentimental touchstones, which have been stuffed in drawers and closets and boxes for years and have managed to pass through my hands at some point during this hectic week as I sorted out what to take, what to leave behind, and what to let go… These past twelve days have been one goodbye after another, growing steadily in intensity, like the climbing decibels of a quickening drumbeat as it rises with crescendo against the lilting melody of life.

Yet here it is. This is my life. These are my dreams. My ambitions are coming into focus, in vivid, brilliant Technicolor, blinding neon lights flashing inexcusably right before my eyes. My foresight, desire, and gut-level decisions have brought me to this fork in the road. It is here, on the edge of morning, June 11, 2008, that I sit in my corner bedroom on the top floor in my parents’ home for the last time, my back sunk against the pillows three rows deep between me and the periwinkle-painted walls behind me, pondering where the road will carry me next.

The concrete facts I know: five hours from now, a plane will whisk me from Harrisburg to Chicago to Japan to Korea. 23 hours after touching off from Pennsylvania, I’ll be collecting my bags and looking out into a sea of Asian faces to find one that hopefully I’ll recognize from the handful of photos I’ve exchanged with my now-employer, Harrison. A few hours later, we will have arrived in Seosan, my home for the next twelve months, my eyes fighting to stay awake long enough to meet the family gracious enough to be my hosts during the week ahead, and to try out, for the first time, the cursory and obligatory Korean phrases I’ve practiced during the long trans-Pacific flight that has brought me here.

I’m feeling oh-so melancholy as memories rack up on top of one another in a paralyzing jumble, and I remind myself again how much I hate goodbyes. We’ll meet again, I’ve told many a friend in the last several days, because after all, I say, the world’s just not that big. Today we can crisscross continents in high-speed planes, bridges thousands of miles in milliseconds with emails and webcams and VOIP calls. We’re not so disconnected as we used to be, which is a comfort as I consider the fact that my favorite Italian meal is going to be one hell of a long haul away for the next calendar year.

Still, I gaze out the window, past the weeping willow with boughs sweeping the ground where I took “glamour shot” photos of Natalie, past the white picket fence and the spot where Emily and I played Boggle on that faded yellow blanket two summers ago. I look out over the magnolia tree where Mom and I found the panicked bird whose nest was endangered after an overambitious gardener cut back its branches a bit too sparsely. I pause on the flowerboxes that have always been overflowing with the bright colors of springtime, thanks to Mom’s green thumb, and the patio table where we’ve eaten many a breakfast during the warmer months. I walk my eyes down the steps to the pool and dip my gaze into the cool, crystal blue water, envisioning Michael and Daniel catapulting themselves off the diving board into jumps that earned top marks by our panel of family judges. I hear Lorelie’s laughter as she surfaces from her snorkel trip across the length of the pool in the aqua boots and fins I brought back from Florida. I smell the succulence of charcoal and marinade as Dad tends to the barbecue, cooking up a mouthwatering plate of pork steaks for dinner. And this is just one little portion of the memories I have wrapped up in this place that my family has called home for the past seven years.

It’s time to say goodbye, time to move forward with courage and hopefulness, time to keep believing in all the great and amazing reasons I chose this road less traveled in the first place. I’m a Robert Frost kind of girl at heart. I want the world to be my oyster, and I want to make my own path across it, one uniquely mine. I want to believe that the world will be different because of the journey I’ve taken to leave my mark. And it doesn’t start here anymore than it ends here, because there isn’t any end to this journey, this passage, this trailblazing, which is so essentially me. But I do know this: somewhere south of Seoul I continue my discovery. And somewhere between this place and wherever the roads next leads me, I’ll find part of myself and leave part of myself, adding another equation to the complex formula that is the universe. I suppose it’s time to dust off my compass and start moving my feet… Hello Korea, here I come.