Call Me Old-Fashioned (T-28 Days)

Almost exactly 4 weeks left in this journey. 

I've been recommended by so many to start a blog, become a content creator, share my story -- and I've been so afraid to create something and put it out there to the big wide world. I'm also a recovering perfectionist that still feels like I need to create this beautiful complex website that will drive up user visits. In the meantime, while I don't get anything set up at the end of the day, I placate myself and my small following by posting stories on my newly created Instagram account (after getting my old account hacked many months ago) and by telling myself that I'm accumulating these photos and videos to tell my story one day, some how. 

Excuses, I know. 

And while I've considered creating a substack or some other easier-to-find and digestible mode of information distribution, I find myself reluctant to start all over from scratch, at least until I have something that I know I want to stick to for good. I already have so many half-finished projects that I started and abandoned for other new sites and technologies and ideas. 

So in the meantime, I'm back here on my very old blog and documenting some thoughts and experiences in my last month in Korea. I'll try to be dedicated to posting one reflection per day for the last 28 days, although I already know it's going to be a challenge with friends visiting and upcoming travels. But there are so many stories and memories in me that if I'm afraid that if I don't record them down somewhere (if I try to write everything in my journal I will definitely run out of space and my hand will continuously cramp -- yes more excuses but the truth!), I will lose them eventually to the gray fog of forgotten memories and that vague sense of loss and nostalgia that is all that remains. 

On the other hand, I've been thankful for the conversations I've had with friends who have touched in to see how my journey has been going. These conversations revive my experienced sentiments and have forced me to coherently articulate the swirl of emotions and thoughts that I've been constantly undergoing during my nearly two months here.

So here I am, mumbling into my corner of the void of the internet. One day I will have SEO, a beautiful layout, a great URL, and a huge devoted following (tbh, do I really want that? or do I just want this space to share my story and to help others who feel equally lost navigating their way through this confusing adventure called life?). In the meantime, Reader - if you're there - thanks for sticking it out with me amidst the messiness of my brain's products, and give me a shout! it would be a nice motivator / accountability spur. 

5-minute word vom #5: unrealized crushes and fevers

Date: September 12, 2022 
Start time: 7:21 PM 
What I'm thinking about: unrealized crushes

I passed this past weekend (read: from Friday night til Monday morning) in a feverish state of coughing (until my abdominals were cramping in pain), chills interspersed with clammy sweats, pounding headaches, vivid dreams, and crazy mashups of thoughts. It was, to date, possibly the sickest I've been in quite some time. (According to the antigen tests I took on Friday afternoon pre-this wild weekend and the one I took this morning after I finally felt well enough to venture a few steps without feeling dizzy, it wasn't COVID, so hooray?) 

But in the midst of the various crazy dreams that I had throughout this weekend, one of the ones which stuck out to me, perhaps because it was so unexpected - was that of a dear childhood friend of mine. I usually dream of people from different aspects and periods of my life in various places that I've lived in or traveled to; however, one would assume that those that show up in your dreams tend to be the ones that are closer to one's waking thoughts. However, the person that appeared in this dream was quite unexpected. I don't know - perhaps his name had popped up while I was casually scrolling through my Facebook feed a while ago? 

The thing that I was surprised to realize both in my dream and outside, once I awoke, was how attracted I found myself to this person. And upon waking and being in surprise that he had showed up in my dream, and that I had been so attracted to him in the dream, made me wonder if I had subconsciously been attracted to him so many years ago (I haven't seen him in maybe 15 years?). And when I think of our relationship back then, he was truly a cherished and trusted friend, somebody who was warm and I feel like I could trust no matter what. He was somebody who was a genuine friend without expecting or asking for more (and perhaps that was why I didn't realize that I could be attracted to him, or perhaps it is my now adult self finding myself attracted to that version of pure trustworthy companionship/friendship?)

It was a strange but beautiful and slightly nostalgic feeling. I would be curious to ask him what he thought about our relationship back then, but I think that at this point, after having been out of touch for so long and given that I believe he's happily married with children, it would be unseasonable to contact him out of the blue with such a question. 

5-minute word vom #4: hearing loss

Date: August 21, 2022 
Start time: 4:20 PM 
What I'm thinking about: hearing loss

I just saw an article that showed that researchers have been developing potential forms of gene therapy that can help prevent genetic hearing loss. 

As somebody who has genetic hearing loss (hey friends, fun fact: I'm borderline medically deaf - does that make me eligible for disability benefits...?), this is super exciting news to hear. Although I suppose it should be encouraging on behalf of potential future children I may have, I was more excited for potential future development of this treatment and/or others that might be able to help improve my own hearing. 

As somebody who first failed her hearing exam at 8 years old and who has lived her entire life with moderate to severe hearing loss, the hearing aids that I've been more or less consistently wearing since 2019 have been both a huge improvement to my quality of life but are still annoying to deal with - my ears hurt after wearing them for a long time; I deal with feedback noise on a regular basis; I'm constantly afraid that I will forget backup batteries or that I will leave the aids at home when I'm on my way to an important meeting; so on and so forth. It's definitely been a love/hate relationship with hearing aids (I had my first pair in college, but the microphone was positioned behind my ear, resulting in a lot of noise coming from behind me --- not good when 5'2" and therefore positioned in the front row of a choir. I only wore those during lectures and eventually stopped wearing them altogether. I also had my first traumatizing experience with the financial system when I got charged 2 years' worth of interest in one go on the price of my hearing aids due to not paying off the entirety of the cost within 2 years. Thankfully there was eventually a class-action lawsuit against the bank for not providing sufficient information to its clients several years later, but the amount of stress I experienced in that moment has scarred me to where I am extra careful about reading the fine print when signing up for payment plans and loans -- and try to avoid them as much as possible altogether). I hate being dependent on anything, and being dependent upon these hearing aids causes feelings of frustration, particularly when I have to make sure I have them on, or that I am extra careful with them (particularly when around water). I also hate playing Telephone (that game where you whisper into people's ears and pass a message down a line of folks), maybe for obvious reasons now. Even with hearing aids, it gives me a lot of stress.

On the other hand, there are some benefits of having hearing loss - I sometimes wonder if I don't remember experiencing much bullying as a kid because I couldn't hear the other kids whispering during class. Some "friends" used to have a joke in which they would just whisper my name really loudly until (if) I finally heard and turned around, but asides from that, I was largely unaware of whispers, rumors, if people were saying things in class, which means I was unresponsive -- thereby making me a boring target. I am also blessedly able to sleep through higher amounts of noise than others, since I don't hear a lot of background noise (I didn't realize the extent of this until my first pair of hearing aids, holy cow what a difference!) If there is a screaming baby on the plane, I will still unfortunately hear it, but it will be much softer and less painful to my ears when I take out my hearing aids.  #silverlinings

I ended up rambling a bit longer about this subject, but that's the life of a nearly?half? deaf person.

End time: 4:34 PM 

5-minute word vom #3: ADHD

Date: August 15, 2022 

Start time: 1:28 PM 

What I'm thinking about: ADHD 

 Primarily because when I first opened the tab to create my next 5-minute blog post in the attempt to maintain consistency, my original thought was to write about what a real start-up is and to discuss the differences between what people think a startup is and what my best friend says it is, and the impact of that conversation on me. However, in the short span of time between opening the editor and actual starting to write, my brain has gone to therapy and mental health to a friend's thesis draft to compassion fatigue / feelings of irritation and then the realization that my brain has cycled through so many and widely different topics (and multiple times) in such a short period of time... that I can't help but wonder if I have some form of ADHD. Or is this how people's brains tend to function normally? Even when I am in a normal conversation my brain tends to jump to other (albeit related) tangents. Sometimes it's based on qualifiers that I include in my statements, sometimes it's based on relationships that I realize in the middle of saying something. Sometimes it feels like my neural networks are being pulled in a million different directions. Alternatively, it feels like my sense of focus is like a pinball bouncing around from one part of my brain to the other, lighting up like the bumpers that flash or sometimes riding a wave of thoughts, only to jump to another train of thought. Welcome to my brain.

5-minute word vom #2: heritage

 Date: August 7, 2022

Start Time: 9:45 PM

What I'm thinking about: Korea

Something I've been thinking about more and more frequently these days, particularly as I'm trying to figure out the next steps of my life. For some reason every time one chapter closes it feels like the next step will be overwhelmingly important, when in reality it is just one stepping stone. I'm not sure why each life decision feels like it is going to be so permanent when we are really just selecting the next pebble to throw into the pond of life. 

I've been wanting to go to Korea on an extended trip for as long as I can remember. More specifically, the last time I recall turning this idea over in my head was the last time I lived in Spain also, in 2015. My internship was coming to an end in October and my thought was to spend a few months in Korea getting to know my extended family still residing there as well as visiting a country where my parents came from and the [old] culture in which I was raised - getting to know the motherland, so to speak, and perhaps exploring my roots. As romantic as it sounds, those thoughts were cut short with a job offer that took me back to the States for five more years before the threads of impermanence? or lack of belonging? or inquietude? began tugging me back abroad. Now that I'm at another crossroads in life and again without a clear path ahead, do I make the leap this time?