If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

Two of our teachers – Colleen and Rachel – are leaving tomorrow. Well, they’re not leaving Korea; Friday is their last day at school. It’s weird to think about – impossible almost. These ladies have made my past two months so incredibly enjoyable with their good nature and zest for life, that I can’t imagine a work place, let alone Korea, without them. But then that got me to thinking about relationships and saying “goodbye.” You always hope that it’s only temporary – at least when you’re leaving a place, but how can you be so sure. Leaving America and the only soil I’d ever known as a home was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but now, being here, it isn’t so bad because I know those people I left – well, most of them – will be in my life when I return. I think my resiliency to that shock of leaving was made easier by the fact that I moved around a lot as a child. Maybe not a lot in the sense that “Army Brats” do, but it was more than I preferred at the time. Okay, so there were only two major moves to permanent residences in the Midwest (and one was when I was two, so it doesn’t really count… but let’s just say it was in my blood – my being since I was a youngin’), but every summer I would say “goodbye” to Nebraska or Missouri and plane it to New Jersey for a summer spent with my Dad – leaving friends with my Mom and making new friends at camp or in some high rise on the Hudson River’s Jersey side. Maybe it was the fact that most of my Mom’s best friends in life come from adolescence, making it through all the moves, abroad and otherwise. One of her friends even moved away in fourth (or seventh – I can never remember which) grade and they kept in touch through letters all those years. Maybe knowing that helped me to realize that no matter where you go, or where someone else goes, if they are important enough to you (or you to them) that they will be with you. Maybe this is a “duh” thing to you (and I guess it is to me, too, but it was never something I really thought about before), but saying goodbye is so difficult that it’s sometimes hard to lose sight of this lifelong picture; being without a person – that you could never imagine being without, that you have never been without – for some extended period of time is such a hard thing to grasp that it feels like it’s the absolute end, my friend. This all occurred to me while I was running on Wednesday night, and let me tell you, it was a beautiful feeling. They (those wise old fools) say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, and perhaps it’s because you have time to realize more about yourself and more about how wonderfully lucky you are to have that person in your life. Of course, I’ve dealt with it before – though they were smaller cases, and usually only in dealing with family, who of course you know you’re going to be reunited with – but this is the first time I think it’s honestly going to come into play… what with being half way across the world from almost everybody I’ve ever known (a couple of girlfriends from college live in Seoul!) and not having an opportunity to see anyone at all – save Skype. It was a refreshing feeling to think of all the wonderful people that I’ve friended in my twenty-some years and hope that we’re together for another twenty some odd years, or more.

I guess it’s like God in a way (not trying to be blasphemous) how you’re with me wherever I go, and that’s a good feeling, because after all, “we are here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.”

Peace and love.

Also, this song makes me happy, and it seems fitting: