Ups and Downs

I've been laying in bed for a while, sleep isn't coming and my mind is unsettled. So, I suppose it's time to write.

Last time I wrote, I left off mentioning that I was severely depressed. I've been having a lot of ups and downs since coming to Jinju. Sometimes it feels like I shouldn't be here--like living in Tongyeong was the real experience and this is just an after-thought. At such times I feel a hungry ghost--lost an unable to move on.

Other times, I feel elated. I feel complete in my solitude--and yes, I feel like I have stepped outside time, and the pre-ordained path on which my life is supposed to unfold, but therein lies the beauty of it. It's easy to mention that you're feeling depressed, because people empathize, but I don't expect people to understand the ecstasy that sometimes overcomes me. People expect solitude to bring sadness and depression, but they often don't realize that it can bring profound experience as well.

When someone asks me what's new, I could tell them--last night, lying in my bed, I pushed past the babbling of my own mind and for two hours floated on the bliss of pure existence. But even as I write this I can imagine my father reading, and on his face is the tight grin that he wears when he thinks someone is full of shit, but believes it's better off to patronize them. I'm sure he's not the only one making that kind of response.

If I mention that staring into a mirror, noticing the imperfections have multiplied I begin to feel my age, and that it makes me think of death. My parents worry--and they take me seriously. But if I mention that after wrestling with that depression, I see that by making a shift from equating self with body, to self as consciousness, I begin to feel an incredible lightness and that the more insubstantial I feel, the more joyful as well, they will not take me seriously.

In other news, I went to the EPIK orientation in Seoul, a little while ago. It was six days long, and better than having to teach class (although, it did eat up a weekend). Spring is coming, and I'm thinking about buying a motorcycle. I have still not completely adjusted to the early mornings, and vow, in the future to avoid work that requires me to get up early at all costs--I have accepted being a late riser, even if the rest of the world cannot. Also, I still haven't gotten completely comfortable teaching elementary school.

Last year I felt like my experience in Korea was an adventure and an incredible opportunity to re-invent myself--and I did. This time, it's more like I'm the same old Brady I was before... just in Korea. My goal in coming to Korea the first time, and again when I departed the second time was to figure out what I was going to do with my life long-term. But now I'm  more unsure than I've ever been. I really have no idea where I will be five years--not physically, nor mentally. It's by turn menacing and exciting.