Birthdays and Friends

Every year on my birthday I tell myself to keep it small. A very small celebration with just a handful of friends. A super low-key dinner with just a bit of alcohol and an early bedtime. But it always seems to turn out a little differently, and always a lot more fun than I expected. Yesterday was no exception.

I spent the afternoon with a good friend who is one of those people you know you were destined to meet. Out of the many, probably hundreds or thousands of people you come across in your life, there are some that you are inexplicably drawn to. And that energy can also feel almost familiar, as if you’ve somehow met and known this person before. Kim is one of those soul-friends. Even when we don’t hang out all the time, we always manage to get together and be there for each other on special occasions. Every so often we have “catch-up” days which usually involve food, wine, and the best conversations. She’s one of the few people I can talk to about ghosts, past lives, and the magic in the universe and not feel totally insane.

In the evening we headed to Sangsu to eat, drink, and create some merriment with some of my other soul-friends.

It’s funny, I always feel a little melancholy in the days leading up to my birthday. The sadness gets so bad sometimes that I have a thought to just cancel any birthday plans I’ve made altogether. There’s always a part of me that doesn’t want to face the reality of age. A part of me would rather sit at home in bed, with a bucket of fried chicken and Netflix, and just forget. As if some fried chicken and a movie could somehow stop the passage of time. But I’m always glad that I didn’t because I end up having a spectacular time with people I absolutely adore. And isn’t that the point? To celebrate all that’s important to you. To celebrate the choices you’ve made that have led you here, to all these wonderful humans.
My heart feels open.

I Have No Idea What the Hell I'm Doing

It’s the eve of my 45th birthday and I’d like to declare that I have no idea what the f**k I’m doing. More importantly and perhaps, frighteningly, I’m not sure of who I am. Shouldn’t I know these things by now? Wasn’t I supposed to have figured all this shit out in my 30’s, while spending the previous decade in existential turmoil, being insecure about things I wish I still possessed today, and recklessly trying out new things?

I know who I am not; I’m not a wife or a mother – two things I’ve never had the desire to become. I’m not a lawyer, doctor, or a concert pianist – three things that would’ve made my parents stark raving ecstatic. I’m not an astronaut, actress, filmmaker, or U.N. interpreter – four things I once had dreams of becoming; and I’m not a teacher – the thing I spent the last six years of my life doing only to find that it brought me more misery than joy. So, I stopped doing it. And since I stopped whenever someone asks me what I do I have no idea how to answer this very simple question. What DO I do? At the moment I have some private tutoring jobs and I occasionally do some copy-editing for an in-flight magazine. I also have a rather odd job singing to children on the phone that brings in cash every month. But is that what I do? Is that who I am? I’ve been feeling a bit lost. The thing is, it’s okay feel lost in your 20’s, and maybe even in your 30’s, but surely by your 40’s you’re supposed to have found whatever is it you’re looking for? As each year ticks by I hear the familiar refrain of “age is just a number” more and more frequently, and while I know it’s true, it doesn’t make getting older any easier. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of my age. What bothers me is that I still feel as aimless and unrooted as I did twenty years ago, but with a growing sense of urgency. I’m still a wandering soul with no real destination, and there’s a small part of me that’s scared that I’ll be wandering forever.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have a deep passion for anything. In fact, just the opposite was true. I wanted too much. I wanted to learn everything and do everything. The problem was that I could never choose just one specific thing to focus on. And that, I suppose, compounded by an abject fear of commitment, makes for a very unstable, uncertain sort of life. I wish I could somehow travel back in time and tell my younger self to just pick one damn thing and stick with it. Anything. But it’s too late for that. I only have right now and the minutes, hours, days, years ahead. I know the only way forward is to keep trying to figure things out. To keep reading and listening. To keep searching inwards and outwards. To keep being thankful for the things that are abundant in my life. To keep loving the people I love. To keep doing the things I enjoy. To just keep taking a breath in and a breath out. And to celebrate another year of being alive with some wine and good friends.

Lunar New Year in Konkuk

I normally don’t go out much in the winter. I’m one of those people who switch to hibernation mode as soon as it gets too cold out to walk around for too long. However, this winter, thankfully, has not been too terrible. On most days I can walk around without a hat or gloves on and feel okay.

Yesterday, my friend Theresa and I decided to walk around her neighborhood of Konkuk for a bit, and then head to her place to bake cookies. I don’t really enjoy baking the way some people do. I think there must be a baking gene that I wasn’t born with because I just could never get into it. But I do still try sometimes, and I’ve found when you’re baking with another person and there’s alcohol involved, it’s a lot more fun.

The area around Konkuk University Station is a great place to shop and eat. Unfortunately, we picked a bad day to walk around since many of the stores and restaurants were closed for the holiday, but we were able to find a restaurant in the small Chinese neighborhood near the station. Apparently this small section is very well known for it’s authentic Chinese restaurants, bakeries and supermarkets. It did feel a tiny bit like walking around Manhattan’s Chinatown, though with much less noise, people, traffic and mysterious malodor wafting through the air. It was definitely a much more pleasant and less hectic experience.

3 Podcasts that save my soul everyday

Podcasts saved my life.
Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But hyperbole aside, they did, in a way, save me. I first started listening to podcasts in 2012 when I first moved to Korea. Back then I knew very few people here, and I was living far from the busy, bustling city of Seoul. For the first few months I was alone a lot, and lonely. I was the only English-speaking person at the public school where I was teaching so I also didn’t have many people around that I could talk to about anything besides the weather, and the awful or angelic behavior of the students. And although I’ve always been completely comfortable being by myself, it was hard. It was the first time I remember not having someone…anyone in my life to call up and hang out with. In the evenings after work and on weekends I sought music, movies, television, NPR and any noise in the form of a human, English speaking voice that I could find. And, oh joy! - I discovered that I could listen to my favorite NPR shows on something called podcasts! Over the years my podcast library has expanded to include everything from news to self-help to D&D, but there are a few that I listen to as a form of soul-searching meditation, like being in church and listening to an uplifting sermon. Their conversations are deep and contemplative, and often show me a better way of living and being.

StoryCorps
If you like crying in public while listening to a podcast this is just the one for you. These are often short audio clips of stories that real people tell about their families, friends, and things that have happened in their lives by interviewing someone they know. I used to listen to it all the time while commuting on the bus or subway, but I found myself crying all the time on trains, buses, or sitting in a cafe surrounded by strangers. The stories are sometimes funny, sometimes heart-wrenching, and almost always heartwarming and hopeful. I’ve started listening to this one when I’m at home alone, with a box of tissues handy.

On Being with Krista Tippett
This was one of the very first podcasts I discovered and downloaded. I can’t remember what exactly drew me to it, but what I do remember is that the very first episode I heard had me instantly enthralled and hooked. It was a discussion about the poet Rumi, although I don’t recall who the interview was with. It was one of the most beautiful and soul-satisfying interviews I had ever heard and I was desperate to hear more like it. It was exactly what I needed at the time. Krista Tippett interviews writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, teachers, religious figures and everyone in-between and beyond, about what life means and how best to live it. I’ll admit that I don’t love every single interview. In fact, I’ve skipped quite a few of them, although I do believe there’s probably a good life lesson to be learned from every one.

Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations
This one is relatively new for me, but has very quickly become one of my faves. It’s basically Oprah’s famous show on a podcast. Similar to On Being, Oprah interviews renowned writers, actors, artists, etc, and talks to them about overcoming struggles, what spirituality means to them, questions about the soul and purpose, and what it all means. I love the way Oprah and her guests often delve into the mystical and mysterious in a way that feel instructional. Not merely deconstructing and attempting to define the undefinable, but they present things like a manual for living a more centered, more attentive, more spiritual existence. And she often discusses the soul’s purpose, which is something I’ve been desperately searching for and always hungry to hear more about.

Winter Blues

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to write about this week. I’ve been mulling over different topics in my head and in my daily journal. Things I’ve been feeling about the relationships that we choose to build around us, or maybe the fact that I’ve been struggling with insomnia for a while now and I just can’t seem to shake it. My insomnia comes and goes. I’ll be okay for like a year, and then all of a sudden I find myself hating life because I can’t fall asleep. But after thinking about it for a little while, I’ve decided to write about something that affects me deeply every day, mostly in the winter season. It’s something I’ve always both loathed and been afraid of. It’s not what you may think. It’s not the biting cold days when you feel like your toes are going to fall off, even in thick winter boots. It’s not the fact that you have to wear like four layers of clothing just to leave your apartment, and how going to the bathroom is made more time-consuming having to take off your thick-ass winter coat in a tiny stall just to pee. Nope…It’s static.

I hate it.

with every fiber of my being.

I’m not trying to be frivolous. I always have a few deep thoughts or questions about life and things that are ostensibly more important than getting electrically zapped in the winter, but honestly, at this moment, after getting zapped by my computer as I turned it on, it’s all I can think about.

And I feel like this happens to me more than most other people. I know it has something to do with electrons and dry air, but I feel like there’s something specifically about me that attracts this thing that I have such a strong aversion to. It puts me into instant fear-mode anytime I encounter something metallic that I know I have to touch. Sometimes I hit it with my hand first. Don’t ask me why. It’s completely irrational, but I’ve somehow come to believe that doing this will either neutralize it, or maybe I’d rather feel the sharp pain of slapping my hand against a metal thing than to have to endure the feeling of static shock - which is really stupid because most of the time I guess I’m subjecting myself to both.

I know that it doesn’t really bother some people. I think those people may be a little bit psycho. Or maybe I’m a little bit psycho. I’m probably giving this way too much thought.

Have a good weekend friends! Wishing you all a warm and static-free week.

New Year, New Blog

As I sit here, warming my hands on a steaming cup of tea, being careful not to spill it on my laptop or let it burn my tongue, I’m finding it difficult to reflect on the past year. Is reflection really necessary? I keep a journal in which I write everything that goes on around me and in my head - I have a collection of memories from years and years past, and I still can’t make sense of them. I’ve never been able to. I’m jealous of the ones that can draw a straight line from their childhood to where they are now, while offering up signposts to their destinations along the way: this experience led to that job, led to that friend, led to that career, led to that love, led to that heartache, led to that marriage, led to that new life in that new city, led to that new career, etc. I see it all the time in other people’s lives, I’ve just never been able to see it mine. So, this year, instead of reflecting and trying to make sense of the past, I’m attempting to focus on what lies ahead. Maybe build some of my own signposts.

on New Years’ resolutions…

I’ve always been a bit of a pessimistic, grinchy cynic who found Christmas joy annoying and never made New Years’ resolutions because I thought they were stupid and no one ever followed through with them anyway so why bother? I was the girl who wore black on Valentines Day, even when I was in a relationship, as a way of protesting a detestable, exceedingly saccharine, overly commercialized holiday. This could have a lot to do with having spent my formative years in a hyper-religious, Jesus freak household, and the natural teenage tendency to go all dark and rebel, but that’s a story for another time. However, this is all to say that I am no longer that person - a youth angry at a world I didn’t understand, and angry at a life I hadn’t yet lived. I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older I’ve lost a lot of that cool, youthful cynicism. Somewhere along my non-linear path I’ve learned to find joy…in joy. I’ve learned gratitude and forgiveness. I’ve learned that “this, too shall pass.” I’ve learned to set goals and be gentle with myself if I don’t meet them. I’ve learned to not hate pink and heart-shaped things. I’ve learned to keep negativity at a safe distance and hold close and cherish those that inspire, encourage, and support. I’ve learned to look at starting over again and again as an adventure to embark on. I’ve learned, once again, to find delight in making New Years’ resolutions.