March 18th marks exactly two years we’ve been in Korea. We left Seattle on the morning of the 17th, and I remember worrying a little about whether or not I was wearing green. I admonished myself silently, thinking it was stupid to be concerned about something so trivial amidst all the sadness and anxiety I felt about leaving my home for a place I had never visited, knowing I was going to stay there for three years, regardless. One of the hardest days of my life.

Our plane touched down on the evening of the 18th, just after sunset. We had chased the sun for 13 hours, and finally it had just gotten away, slipping beyond the horizon. It was a mild, clear-skied night and I remember first how horrible the airport was; all run-down and very third-world looking. I was so fatigued from anxiety and the long flight that I couldn’t think well enough to figure out how to maneuver through the customs, immigration, baggage claim; I relied on Dave to think for me.

Mr. Lee picked us up in the new company car, its seats still covered in plastic. He smiled much and seemed very nice. (He was our sole insight into the culture for months; we trusted him to advocate for us and to teach us how to survive. We found out too late the extent to which he had lied time and time again, and we’ve been able to reflect on how much he alone perpetuated our discomfort. Very recently, we learned that he lost his job because of the recession. This knowledge appeals to my sense of retribution.) Riding into the heart of the city, I remember noticing how speeding along the expressway reminded me a lot of France, where small cars whiz around and among other cars and large trucks on narrow lanes. We passed stacks and stacks of tall buildings on our way to the hotel. It was dark, but the city was very much alive with people crawling all over the sidewalks and displayed in restaurant windows. I took note of the Baskin & Robbins just down the street from our hotel.

The hotel was nice, clean. At that point, I was just happy that the journey was over and I could sleep. The next morning, clouds had settled in over the city and it rained, just like it did today. I looked out of the hotel window onto a patio several floors below where the fake grass was collecting puddles of water. I felt optimistic initially, excited about the challenge ahead, but I was not anticipating the strength of my reaction to all the small challenges nor how the anxiety associated with a life change of this magnitude would influence my ability to cope and adapt.

As part of the anxiety, I felt fear. I began to realize that I couldn’t really trust anything to protect me. I suspected the sprinklers in the ceiling of our room wouldn’t work if there was a fire. I looked north at the mountains rimming the downtown area and imagined a hostile neighbor just on the other side. I saw danger where there was real danger, but imagined the possibility of actually being harmed by it to be much greater than it actually is. Worst of all, I felt all eyes on me, which they were, and I couldn’t bear to be so conspicuous in the world; not when I was already feeling so vulnerable, especially.

That kind of adversity brought me face to face with inner darkness. All the defense mechanisms I’d been building over my lifetime were feeble in the presence of it. They failed and I found myself coping in ways I might’ve coped when I was child, only having the self-insight of an adult with which to berate myself for acting so cowardly and irrationally. I watched myself degrade and in response I had to develop new fortifications to hide within so that I could appear "normal" without.

Yesterday evening, the 18th, Dave and I met at Pul Hyang Gi for dinner in celebration of the two year benchmark. Over the first course, we asked each other how things had changed; how we felt now compared to what we felt in the beginning. I felt numb to the questions. I almost couldn’t answer for having lost the saliency of that traumatic time. Our answers reflected that numbness and there was a lot of silence intermingled with general statements about how living has gotten easier, even while Dave’s working conditions have not. And then, we agreed that neither one of us is happy and the length of time out of the US has made us both feel apprehensive about our return.

This morning, I woke up to rain and traveled out into it for my tea class. It has taken me nearly two years to seek education about the culture. I’m thankful I reached that critical point while I still have time to cultivate it. Sometime last fall, I began thinking about how I’d reached a turning point, where living in Korea was no longer a constant nagging misery. Slowly, almost unnoticed, I had grown accustomed to my life and felt comfortable in it. It had taken a long time, but so many things that I’d had to learn were now performed without effort and that had freed up energy I could direct toward just being. Things like knowing when and where I could get money, how to pay the bills, which trash bags to use, subway lines, bus routes. I used to make lists of places that carried specialty items I needed to make the foods I liked; now I just know where to go without thinking. I found other ways to accommodate my self-care needs; for example, I can’t drive to release my frustrations, so now I walk.

But the whole thing is one big artificial comfort zone I’ve constructed slowly, through much trial and error. I think the accomplishment of that is valid, but still I realize that the world in which I move is a tenuous sphere of safety for me, which allows me to live here comfortably so that I don’t have to acknowledge how miserable I am. I live a life of silence and seclusion, in which I’ve become quite comfortable. I’ve no trouble occupying my time with little or no interaction and I find I can move effectively outside without hardly muttering a word. After two years, this uncharacteristic behavior for me has become normal and somewhat unconscious. I find that I have trouble orating when the situation calls for it; I can’t articulate precisely what I mean because I’m out of practice translating my thoughts into words. I find also that the line between reality and fantasy is harder to distinguish; that idle time is not what the mind was made for and left to its own devices it can create its own realities on which it can feed unfettered. I’ve settled in so comfortably, and now lead a life absent of almost any pressure. And when I do feel any kind of pressure for any kind of thing, I feel anxious and unconfident. I have regressed: I have turned to and found comfort in the very behaviors I've worked to overcome throughout my life. See, I’ve spent all this time indulging that horrible part of me that is lazy, full of fear - for what? Success, failure? - which is destructive to my self-development and to the achievement of my life goals. This way I live now is fine for independently wealthy hermits, but will do little to help me realize my dreams. I lament that I’m living here in my mid-twenties, when I feel I should be constantly pushing myself forward. Instead, I’ve put myself and my whole life on hold while I pine for a time called, "When We Go Back." When we go back, I’ll start my career. When we got back I’ll be happy. When we go back I’ll get in shape. When we go back….