Segmented Loyalties and Loves
During my freshman year of college, I began to realize that going to school 3000 miles away from home didn’t only mean more independence and responsibility, it also meant that I was committing to a split life. Friends in two places, family in one, and the knowledge that the two halves will never unite is as exhausting as flying two kites simultaneously. When my high school teachers had suggested that I start looking for colleges back east, my major concern was homesickness, but I soon discovered that homesickness was the least of my problems. When I started dating a boy seriously enough to go to his parents’ on Long Island with him on the weekends, I knew that my decision to go to college in New Jersey had much further reaching ramifications that I’d originally considered. After summer vacations at his family’s shore house and holidays on LI and then finally neighborhood drives to show me the ‘softer side’ of the crowded Manhattan appendage, I was breaking my mother’s heart and beginning to think my children would grow up without the benefits of wide open spaces, and cows, and fresh produce and clean air. It was when we broke up that I decided that after school I would move home to California and stay there, in an effort to stop this ever-widening continental divide through my spirit.
But when it came time to make a decision about what would happen after graduation, the thought of moving back into my mom’s house in my beloved hometown, with all the same friends from before school terrified me. I didn’t want to fall into the directionless habits of so many who had stayed, and truthfully, I wanted to bring more back than a degree. I wanted experiences and stories and a resume that would allow me to get a job I loved all neatly packed in my checked bags for that trip. I also couldn’t bear saying goodbye to the wonderful friends I’d made in college (all based in the tri-state area, of course), because I knew that once I moved away, that was it. The end of the fun, the end of the closeness – both physically and emotionally.
And now, less than a month before I leave New Jersey for good, I am satisfied with the decision I made to stay. I am equally satisfied with my decision to go, but the proof’s in the pudding, which is far from set, so we’ll see. During the past two years here, I was able to solidify lifelong friendships, and weed out those that won’t stand up to distance and tough times. I learned all about hard work and how far I can push myself as well as where I draw the line. Ultimately, I proved to myself that I am capable of running my own life and rolling with the punches (of which there have been far too many this year). I’ve reconciled my differences with New Jersey and achieved an acceptable balance between my two coasts.
Deciding to go to Korea was as intuitive (and nervewracking) as agreeing to go back east for school, and as I prepare to make this colossal change, I realize that once again I am committing myself to a life of segmented loyalties and loves. I think we don’t anticipate the way a place can entangle itself in our minds and hearts. A frame of reference is taken for granted, and it’s hard to imagine it turning completely inside out. While I was researching Korea (and even now, usually), I thought of it in terms of one year of teaching, culture and travel. Straightforward, succinct. College was much the same. Before arriving, I knew I’d make friends and connections that way, but I’d be home every 3 months and then living in CA again after graduation. I saw it through my west coast eyes. It’s like flying; when you’re so far away from something, it looks neat, simple. Streets seem linear, neighborhoods quiet. It isn’t until you land and try to make your way through the winding streets that you start to grasp the details of a place.
Now I’m looking over at Korea, and the minutiae can’t be distinguished, but I know it’s there. I know that one year could become two, or could lead me to somewhere else entirely. I know I’ll have a whole new frame of reference by Halloween, and that my global viewpoint will shift along with it. I’ll gain friends and lose friends and get caught up in concerns and joys so far removed from my life as I know it that I can’t even fathom what that will be like. I know I’ll be uncomfortable and awkward, and that it’s the recovery from those imbalances that is the stuff character is made from. And all the while I’ll be spreading my support group over more continents. Not only Asia, but Australia, Europe and up into Canada, as I meet and become close with other foreign teachers.
I’ve often said that I am chock full of contradictions, and this is certainly a primary offender. By nature I am both a sensitive homebody, content while surrounded by family, friends and pets, and an adventurous world traveler, nourishing my soul on the tastes, sights and sounds of foreign places. Because of this primal opposition, my life will undoubtedly face many splits and divides before and even after I settle down. But now that I’m aware of it, I will try to embrace the many segments, and instead of seeing them as conflicting kites, completely independent of one another, they will be separate balloons on colorful ribbons, all tied into one big beautiful bouquet.
But when it came time to make a decision about what would happen after graduation, the thought of moving back into my mom’s house in my beloved hometown, with all the same friends from before school terrified me. I didn’t want to fall into the directionless habits of so many who had stayed, and truthfully, I wanted to bring more back than a degree. I wanted experiences and stories and a resume that would allow me to get a job I loved all neatly packed in my checked bags for that trip. I also couldn’t bear saying goodbye to the wonderful friends I’d made in college (all based in the tri-state area, of course), because I knew that once I moved away, that was it. The end of the fun, the end of the closeness – both physically and emotionally.
And now, less than a month before I leave New Jersey for good, I am satisfied with the decision I made to stay. I am equally satisfied with my decision to go, but the proof’s in the pudding, which is far from set, so we’ll see. During the past two years here, I was able to solidify lifelong friendships, and weed out those that won’t stand up to distance and tough times. I learned all about hard work and how far I can push myself as well as where I draw the line. Ultimately, I proved to myself that I am capable of running my own life and rolling with the punches (of which there have been far too many this year). I’ve reconciled my differences with New Jersey and achieved an acceptable balance between my two coasts.
Deciding to go to Korea was as intuitive (and nervewracking) as agreeing to go back east for school, and as I prepare to make this colossal change, I realize that once again I am committing myself to a life of segmented loyalties and loves. I think we don’t anticipate the way a place can entangle itself in our minds and hearts. A frame of reference is taken for granted, and it’s hard to imagine it turning completely inside out. While I was researching Korea (and even now, usually), I thought of it in terms of one year of teaching, culture and travel. Straightforward, succinct. College was much the same. Before arriving, I knew I’d make friends and connections that way, but I’d be home every 3 months and then living in CA again after graduation. I saw it through my west coast eyes. It’s like flying; when you’re so far away from something, it looks neat, simple. Streets seem linear, neighborhoods quiet. It isn’t until you land and try to make your way through the winding streets that you start to grasp the details of a place.
Now I’m looking over at Korea, and the minutiae can’t be distinguished, but I know it’s there. I know that one year could become two, or could lead me to somewhere else entirely. I know I’ll have a whole new frame of reference by Halloween, and that my global viewpoint will shift along with it. I’ll gain friends and lose friends and get caught up in concerns and joys so far removed from my life as I know it that I can’t even fathom what that will be like. I know I’ll be uncomfortable and awkward, and that it’s the recovery from those imbalances that is the stuff character is made from. And all the while I’ll be spreading my support group over more continents. Not only Asia, but Australia, Europe and up into Canada, as I meet and become close with other foreign teachers.
I’ve often said that I am chock full of contradictions, and this is certainly a primary offender. By nature I am both a sensitive homebody, content while surrounded by family, friends and pets, and an adventurous world traveler, nourishing my soul on the tastes, sights and sounds of foreign places. Because of this primal opposition, my life will undoubtedly face many splits and divides before and even after I settle down. But now that I’m aware of it, I will try to embrace the many segments, and instead of seeing them as conflicting kites, completely independent of one another, they will be separate balloons on colorful ribbons, all tied into one big beautiful bouquet.
posted by pixelpulp at 2:10 PM
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