19 Years...

 19 years ago I created this blog not really knowing what I was doing. You can see that clearly from the first post. 

I lost connection with this, apparently, in 2009; that was the last post in created. I remember that 2009 I was in my final year of reverse culture shock which lasted five years. It was a very challenging time in my life, but I dug my heels in and leaned in with everything I had. If I had survived living in Korea with all I faced there, I was not about to let a city in my own country chew me up and spit me out. I was back home after my sojourn overseas, and I deserved all the rights and privileges that came with that. 

The blogs stopped after that final year of reverse culture shock haze because I was hyper-focused on catching up for all the years I had missed, all the memories I hadn't created, and finding my way in the world I would create in my own country. The blogs may have stopped, but the journaling didn't. And those journal entries, along with all the ones that came before 2009, in some way prepared me for what would come next: living what had been learned. So in some way, my learning evolved from daily writing and reflection into daily discussions and social interactions. The depth and variety of learning still continued. It just continued with a face with words in front of me instead of paper and ink below me. 

I had a faint sense of sadness and regret following me around all the time reminding me that I hadn't journaled in a while. Whispering in my ear that my friend, the journal, that had been with me through everything I had faced since 1993 was still waiting for me to sit down and write. And there were a few times I heeded this call to visit my old friend and write. But the feeling of familiarity just wasn't there like it was before. And each time I would end an entry, put down my pen, and close my journal wondering what had happened, there would be a calming sense of ease come over me. And with that calming ease would come the distinct thought in my mind: don't worry, you are still journaling; you are just doing it in a different form. A form that others can learn from too. 

15 years have passed now. And if I thought I had overcome some remarkable situations captured in my journals before 2009 that led to me prepared to navigate the waters I was about to face,  then I can't even fathom what the last 15 years have set me up to navigate. 

I will leave that there for now. Just know that after finally figuring out how to reconnect with this blog (multiple attempts to find it, multiple attempts to prove it's mine, multiple attempts to log on), I burst into tears unexpectedly. "What the hell is this all about?" I thought. Suffice it to say, I am happy to be here again. And what is to follow is my attempt to understand what all of this is for. To learn any semblance of a reason why I have experienced what I have. To make sense of a life where nothing has ever really made sense. And by sharing this pathway to understanding, if you can learn anything to help you along your path of "still learning," then all of it was for something. 

Until next time...be well along your path, and have a great day; don't let anyone rob that from you.