I want to be unbound

20180201 in the wee hours

I have trouble forgiving. 

It's something I've always struggled with. Most people have the impression that I don't hold onto burdens, and often this is true. One offense is easy to laugh off. I often look back and am abused at my own feelings of offense. After all, we have all had times when we were grumpy, hurt, uncomfortable, and impulsive. Most interactions with strangers or acquaintances are not taken personally, even positive ones.

However, when there is a pattern in these interactions - and this is more likely with a closer relationship - then I begin to build a resistance and expectation - predicting bad behavior and steeling myself for it ahead of time, even days in advance - until at times it becomes a permanent way of relating to this person. Even when I voice my dislike and the person expresses surprise and eventually remorse for the interaction, I will begin to shield myself.

This is a survival mechanism that has saved me many times from people close to me who are manipulative, emotionally abusive, unstable, and toxic. No matter how much I may care for and love this person, I find myself creating distance - sometimes realizing this only after my attachment has turned to bitterness or worse yet cold objective detachment.

Now I am engaged to a beautiful human being. He makes mistakes. He says hurtful things. He is sometimes reluctant to admit to being hurtful. But he genuinely wants to treat me well and tries to moderate his own behavior to build a healthier relationship. I love him - but then tonight I found myself predicting hurtful behavior aloud to him, telling him that he often holds in frustration and then lashes out in hurtful ways... and that he will do so if we don't mitigate it now

I was surprised at finding myself explaining this as if I was expecting it next week, like a weather forecast. And he does not do this regularly. I wonder if I am steeling myself. And I wonder if I am also hurting him out of some pre-preemptive retaliation. I don't want to cut myself off from him. But how do I trust him not to hurt me when I know it's inevitable?

------

Is part of me scared? Is this because of my past experiences? I worry that one day his love will dry out. I worry that my trust in him will be broken. Ultimately, I worry that I am not worthy enough for love - and that therefore I cannot depend on love. When did these worries start? Are they from my scars from a relationship that degraded my self-worth? Are they from an underlying depressive tendency? Are they from the way I was raised? I don't know.

All I know is - I love him. And part of that is trusting and being present - even if it makes me vulnerable - even if I am scared. Trusting him means giving him the benefit of the doubt. Being present means letting go of the past. 

And I know he loves me. And his love is supportive, kind, and generous. I want to celebrate it freely.

Hemingway's "death loneliness."

This morning, I started the day reading A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. I'm almost finished this book, just getting to the part where Hemingway has gotten to know Zelda Fitzgerald, Scott Fitzgerald's wife.

There are a few interesting tidbits from the book.

• "Bang" was used in the 1920s as crude slang for intercourse. I had no idea it was so long lived.
• Ernest Hemingway may have drank a lot, but he did not drink before he wrote something he considered good, while he was writing at any part of the day, nor after dinner.
• Scott Fitzgerald was a very loyal and good friend to Hemingway when he was sober, but turned very dramatic and hysterical when even a little drunk.
• Fitzgerald also couldn't spell very well and took him 2 years to spell Hemingway's name correctly.

And knowing how Hemingway lived his life, certainly a writer's life, I am inspired to live my life more disciplined as well. I'm just not very good at it. I don't drink much, but what would I consider my drink? Video games? The internet?

I saw this page a couple months ago, and it made an impression on me as well: http://theknow.ask.com/i-lived-a-day-according-to-ben-franklins-schedule-and-it-changed-my-life.

I want to live diligently and in a self-disciplined way, but I am not naturally diligent. I work hard under pressure or inspiration or duty, but my nature is not to wake up and work. I would find a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment is getting my work finished before I play or relax, but I have a hard time with that. I think when I'm surrounded by people with those good habits, I take them on and become better, almost organically, but left to my own devices, I struggle.

Another tidbit that resonated with me from the book was this: "... I felt the death loneliness that comes at the end of every day that is wasted in your life." I felt that too from time to time in my past, but I wonder if I've become accustomed to it. I need to live my life fully, making sure each day I do something "good" and work towards something greater. Diligence is such a difficult virtue for me. Help!

The Shadow.

Sometimes I forget about the shadow that stands outside the door.

This week, it let itself in without me noticing. I kept going about my business, wondering why it was difficult to move around, until I tried to walk over to my love. The shadow gripped my wrist tightly. I pulled, but it hurt. I didn't want to turn around to face it. "Don't go; it'll just hurt more," it whispered gently, with a tone of wisdom. I contemplated the words, not sure if they were my own. I moved toward the door once more. "If you go to him, he'll hurt you. He'll trap you. He'll leave you. The only one who will never leave you is me." I felt weak from struggling. I wanted to sit back down. Maybe it was right.

The shadow cast itself across my windows, greying the skies. Angular shapes darkened the faces of others around me.. I looked to my gentle friends, but the shadows under their eyebrows, the corners of their lips, sat heavily with sharp disapproval, with deceit. "They don't care about you," the grip around my wrist tightened. The weight was heavier; my weariness growing over me.

I remembered then, of this feeling, of this grip, of this darkness, so I turned around and faced it, that shadow. And it tried to hide, but I already knew it was there. It's a cunning thing, that shadow. I will move my furniture, find where it's hiding, and then sweep it back out the door. It'll wait again, I'm sure. It may even come back in, but I'll know, and I'll clean my house once more.

Waiting to sleep.

There is 43 minutes left before my washing machine is finished its work, so I'm watching Law and Order SVU while looking around on the internet. I was reading Lisa's blog and it inspired me to write a bit, even though I don't think there's too much to write about. I've been careful what I write here, since I don't know who or when people are reading my blog. It's not that there are terrible things I want to say about anyone or any work, but I do value my privacy, and the longer my blog has been online, the more likely that people I didn't originally intend to read this has started checking it from time to time.

To update people back at home (and elsewhere in the world) about my life, I've been really tired lately. I'm not upset or unhappy, but it's been a while since I've felt completely emotionally healthy. That doesn't mean I'm sick per se, just that I need to take better care of myself. The state of my apartment is a mess, I've been running late for a lot of appointments, and my sleeping patterns are completely off kilter.

On the other hand, I've been pretty happy with how my classes are going, with my new apartment in general, with my lovely friends, with the pleasant weather, with everything in general. Sounds confusing? I guess so. I think the problem is that I'm not that good at being busy and living alone at the same time. Whenever I've lived alone successfully, I've always given myself a lot of time, left most of my work at work, had lots of time to clean, putz around, do yoga, etc. I've also had a lot of space and company over from time to time.

In Korea, my apartment is like my very own private cave. I rarely have company (if ever), I come here exhausted after work and social engagements, and I hardly have any time or energy left over to take care of this place. When I am at home, I'm usually recovering from sleep deprivation or winding down by playing video games or watching TV.

Or maybe I'm just lazy. ;) Strangely, there are some things I'm quite meticulous about. I keep the bathroom and kitchen clean... I can't stand it when those areas of the apartment are even remotely uncleanly. I also do my laundry at least once if not more times a week. I like my pillow cases, clothes, and towels as clean as possible.

In any case, here are some of my on goings lately:

Water color panda.

Water color Kogi.

Visiting my "in-laws."

I was one of 80,000 people at a free Psy concert at City Hall.

Looking up through the trees on campus.

Playing with Photowonder on my HTC.

Playing spatial reasoning games. ;)

Listening to the Sookmyung University Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center.

Putting together new outfits.

Playing with every friendly cute dog I run into.

Making beef and beans taco mix.

Enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

Picnicking on Chuseok weekend.

Eating Lynn's delicious homemade cupcakes.

Taking pretty pictures of said cupcakes.

Playing with Kogi.

Incorporating Spongebob and Hermione into my courses.

Drooling over chocolate cake.

Checking out new chocolatiers.

Roasting chestnuts.

Taking photos with Brian's fisheye lens.

And finally...

Posting even more photos on tumblr.

Even though I do have a lot of anxieties and worries on my mind, I am overwhelmingly thankful for all these memories and experiences. I've got a lot I want to do and to learn and to improve, but all in due time. In the meantime, I can't let all these blessings pass me by. :)

Gayaguem, weather, discounts, ice cream, and care packages making my days happy amid the chaos of semester preparations

It's been an eventful, and hectic, last week of August and first couple days of September so far. One of the awesome things is that I'm taking gayaguem classes again at the National Gugak Center. They offer special classes for non-Korean citizens, for 3 months, 2 hours a week. The classes teach a traditional instrument of your choice (unless the class has less than 8 people sign up), all for an unbelievably cheap price (30,000 won). I took the classes in the spring, so I signed up for it again this fall.

The weather's been gorgeous on the most part lately, after the two typhoons passed through Seoul last week. Since the latter part of last week, the sky pretty much looked like this:

The underground market under Express Bus Terminal has reopened! It's been pretty fun walking around, browsing for discount prices on cute clothes:

After Italy, my sweet tooth has been re-awakened. I've been devouring much more ice cream, cookies, and chocolate lately:

As for tech... I got a HD monitor which will be replacing the space depleting projection tube television I've been borrowing from my head teacher. I've been using that monitor to watch Law & Order SVU and to replay Bioshock 2. :)

Finally, I got a care package in the mail from Jenny P! I love care packages and letters and such. Thank you! :) I have a lot of really wonderful people who I'm so lucky to count as my friends. Jenny is one of these friends.

More updates later. :)

Summer archives

Just a quick update. It's hot here in Seoul. My apartment heats up during the day to a very disgusting degree, but the weather in general is so humid, I almost feel like I'm swimming. I'm going to change my office mate to Missy, and looking forward to having a friend as a work buddy. At the moment, my attention span is quite low due to the fact that I feel like I'm melting in this heat. :)

If you'd like to see more day to day photos (or some previews of photos that I haven't posted here yet, as well as some oldies), please visit my tumbler page: http://thankslovehope.tumblr.com/

I'm trying to upload at least one picture a day (or a couple pictures every other day) with my friend Jenny, who's living in Vancouver at the moment. You can see an overview of the photos here: http://thankslovehope.tumblr.com/archive

Enjoy!

Thailand Photo Dump #3

If you'd already seen #1 and #2, here is my third photodump of Thailand. These are from Koh Phi Phi and our trek around Bangkok, again. Coming up in #4 are tiger picture from an animal sanctuary.

#4 coming up soon (or perhaps after more Italy pictures?).